BILL NUMBER: S5722
SPONSOR: SKOUFIS
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the public health law, in relation to creating the
health emergency response data system
 
PURPOSE:
This bill is designed to create in statute the Health Emergency Response
Data System (HERDS) and bring transparency to the information gathered
during public health emergencies, including communicable disease
outbreaks like COVID-19, by requiring the Department of Health to share
aggregate data from HERDS reports with the entities reporting and the
public.
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1: Creates a new section 206-c of the public health law to
create the Health Emergency Response Data System (HERDS) in statute.
Sections 2: Amends paragraph b of subdivision 2 of section 206-c of the
public health law directing HERDS to make HERDS information available to
government entities, health care providers, and the public, including
posting on the department's website as soon and as close to real-time as
practicable after it is collected but no later than seven days after the
department receives it.
Section 3: Sets Effective Date
 
JUSTIFICATION:
The Department requires healthcare providers of all types to answer
survey data points throughout an emergency, often changing the data
requested from the providers at various intervals and collecting this
data in the Health Emergency Reporting Data System (HERDS. In every
other instance, the data provided by individual providers on HERDS forms
have been given back to providers in an aggregated form to help them
better understand and manage the emergency. Much to the dismay of
providers, however, after months of daily data submissions and requests
to the department to share the aggregate data, the department has never
shared any of the HERDS data relating to the COVID19 public health emer-
gency. At 2020 legislative hearings on COVID-19, providers expressed a
desire to see this information to inform their emergency response poli-
cies better. This bill would ensure that the department provides timely
feedback to providers as they have in the past and to the public on the
department's website whenever the HERDS is activated.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: Senate
2019: N/A
2020: No Senate Same-As
2021: No Senate Same-As
2022: No Senate Same-As
2023: S5732, Reported and Committed to Finance
2024: S5732, Vetoed Memo.76
Assembly
2019: N/A
2020: A1132, Referred to Health
2021: A244A, Passed Assembly
2022: A244A, Passed Assembly
2023: A5370, Referred to health
2024: A5370, Vetoed Memo.76
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to state.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately; provided, however, section two
of this act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall have
become a law. Effective immediately, the commissioner of health shall
make regulations and take other actions reasonably necessary to imple-
ment each section of this act on its effective date.

Statutes affected:
S5722: 206-c public health law, 206-c(2) public health law