HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania health research agency was at least temporarily revived by Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday, a week after most of its employees were sent home during a battle with the state Senate over an insurance subsidy for doctors.

Rendell signed an executive order to keep the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council running until Nov. 30 "to prepare the agency for reauthorization or for permanent dissolution, as appropriate."

"The governor hopes that by that time the Legislature will have sent him a bill reauthorizing the council's existence for a long term, or a longer term," said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo.

The order gives the agency permission to view confidential data and the other material that it has historically collected.

The council researches the financial performance and patient-care track records of Pennsylvania hospitals. Its authorization expired at midnight June 30, leaving all but two of its 43 employees out of a job. Ardo said they all could be back at work today.

The council's chairman, David Kreider, said Tuesday he had not seen Rendell's order and did not know what it said.

"We had hoped for reauthorization in some way, shape or form because we believe the service we provide is helpful," Kreider said.

The Senate has passed two bills tying a five-year renewal of the council's legal authority to an extension of a malpractice insurance premium subsidy for doctors known as MCare. But Rendell had already tied the extension of the doctors' payments to his plan to expand health coverage to uninsured Pennsylvanians; because of opposition to that plan, the council's future was thrown into doubt.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, issued a statement saying Rendell's order demonstrated that last week's shutdown was unnecessary and urging the House to vote on the Senate-passed legislation.

Rep. Todd Eachus of Luzerne County, a leader in the House Democratic caucus on health care issues, said a vote on the Senate approach was "not in the cards."

"We just have a difference of priorities," Eachus said. "The Senate clearly wants doctors paid before the uninsured get insurance. We really feel our priorities are reversed."

The council, established in 1986, collects data on the state's health care system. Its budget is about $5 million.

Its reports have delved into the state of hospitals' finances and a variety of measures that help consumers compare how different institutions treat patients.

A similar showdown occurred five years ago, in Rendell's first year in office.