[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 18 (Thursday, January 27, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4908-4910]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-1544]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection;
Comment Request
AGENCY: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: This notice announces the intention of the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to request that the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) approve the proposed information collection
project: ``Understanding Development Methods from Other Industries to
Improve the Design of Consumer Health IT.'' In accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520, AHRQ invites the public
to comment on this proposed information collection.
DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by March 28, 2011.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to: Doris Lefkowitz,
Reports Clearance Officer, AHRQ, by e-mail at
doris.lefkowitz@AHRQ.hhs.gov.
Copies of the proposed collection plans, data collection
instruments, and specific details on the estimated burden can be
obtained from the AHRQ Reports Clearance Officer.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doris Lefkowitz, AHRQ Reports
Clearance Officer, (301) 427-1477, or by e-mail at
doris.lefkowitz@AHRQ.hhs.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Proposed Project
Understanding Development Methods from Other Industries to Improve
the Design of Consumer Health IT Consumer health information technology
(IT) is the collection of tools, technologies, and artifacts that
individuals can use to support their health care management tasks
(Agarwal and Khuntia, 2009). Consumer health IT can play an important
role in patients' efforts to coordinate their care and in ensuring that
their personal values and interests help guide all clinical decisions.
In order to accomplish this, consumer health IT solutions must take
into account the particular needs of the consumer.
Useful consumer health IT products may enhance the quality of
health care by empowering individual consumers to take a more active,
effective, and collaborative role in their own personal health care.
These products could provide the following capabilities to consumers:
Information storage, archiving, and retrieval: The
capabilities to search results of past examinations or lab tests, to
interact with electronic versions of their health records, and identify
when to seek health care services.
Health monitoring: The capability to report data (e.g.,
blood pressure, weight) from various locations.
Information seeking and searching: The capability to
interactively search for a wealth of health-related information.
Despite the potential power of consumer health IT, consumers have
not adopted these technologies to the same degree that they have
adopted technology products marketed from other consumer product
industries. One reason for slow adoption is that the marketplace lacks
robust tools that allow for the complexity and diversity of personal
health information management (PHIM) practices. These types of
practices are influenced by a variety of user and contextual factors,
including demographics, personal attitudes, the goals and objectives of
users, and the broad range of tasks that users wish to perform. There
is no comprehensive list of problems that users encounter as they
collect and reflect on personal information; this creates a barrier for
design of consumer health IT tools.
New practices for the development of consumer-facing digital tools
are emerging in a variety of industries. The success of information
management tools in other industries offers much to be learned and
applied to the health care field.
In July of 2009, AHRQ held the Building Bridges: Consumer Needs and
the Design of Health Information Technology workshop. The workshop
brought together leaders from multiple disciplines, including health
informatics, health sciences, information science, consumer health IT,
and human factors to discuss the diverse needs of different consumer
groups in managing their personal health information, and how these
needs could be incorporated into the design of consumer health IT
solutions. The outcome of the workshop was a framework to further the
design of consumer health IT systems, based on an understanding of
practices that consumers use in their PHIM. The final report also
included a set of recommendations for additional work in the health IT
field related to research and industry and policy. Recognizing that
design plays a key role in consumer use of personal tools, one
research-related recommendation that resulted from the workshop was to
investigate the application of design methodologies used in other
industries to consumer health IT design.
This project has the following goals:
(1) To investigate the product development approaches, methods, and
philosophies from a variety of industries in order to identify
promising design and development techniques that will be most
applicable to consumer health IT.
(2) To disseminate the project findings and recommendations to
vendors and developers of consumer health IT products to assist them in
developing health IT products that are consumer-focused. This study is
being conducted by AHRQ through its contractors, Westat and the
University of Wisconsin, pursuant to AHRQ's statutory authority to
conduct and support research (1) on health care and on systems for the
delivery of such care, including activities with respect to health care
technologies, 42 U.S.C. 299a(a)(5), and (2) to advance the use of
computer-based health records, 42 U.S.C. 299b-3(a)(6).
Method of Collection
To achieve the goals of this project the following activities will
be implemented:
(1) Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with key
informants identified as being experts in the design, management, and/
or marketing of consumer products that are relevant to consumer health
IT products. The purpose of these interviews is to gather information
related to their experiences in developing consumer products, focusing
on the design processes that their company uses, how they segment the
market, the role of users in testing during the various product
development phases, and the factors that affect the success of their
product development approaches.
(2) The final report will be provided in PDF format for easy
download from the AHRQ National Resource Center for Health IT Web site.
Information collected by the study will support the development of
recommendations for those developers
[[Page 4909]]
and vendors who design, develop, and market consumer health IT
products. The ultimate goal is to improve consumer health IT design and
impact the adoption of this technology by consumers. This project will
identify principles that led to the success of other consumer products,
so that they can be evaluated for extension to the design and
development of consumer health IT.
Estimated Annual Respondent Burden
Exhibit 1 shows the estimated annualized burden hours for the
respondents' time to participate in this research. Semi-structured
interviews will be conducted with no more than 15 individuals
representing a variety of consumer-focused industries. The average
burden will be 90 minutes per interview. The total annual burden is
estimated to be 23 hours.
Exhibit 2 shows the estimated annual cost burden associated with
the respondent's time to participate in this research. The total annual
cost burden is estimated to be $1,770.
Exhibit 1--Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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Number of Number of
Form name technical responses per Hours per Total burden
experts expert response hours
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Semi-structured interviews...................... 15 1 1.50 23
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Total....................................... 15 1 1.50 23
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Exhibit 2--Estimated Annualized Cost Burden
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Number of
Form name technical Total burden Average hourly Total cost
experts hours wage rate * burden
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Semi-structured interviews...................... 15 23 $76.94 $1,770
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Total....................................... 15 23 76.94 1,770
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* Wage rates calculations were not possible using data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates for the United States, Occupational Employment
Statistics (OES). The OES categories are too broad to determine a wage rate for a ``Director of Product
Development.'' Instead wage rate calculations are based on information from the Web site www.salary.com which
has a tool providing a range of salaries for a variety of specific job titles. The salary for a ``Product
Development Director'' generally ranges from $130,313 (25th percentile) to $189,771 (75th percentile) with an
anticipated median of $160,042. Assuming 2,080 hours per year (40 hours per week), the resulting median hourly
rate is $76.94.
Estimated Annual Costs to the Federal Government
Exhibit 3 shows the estimated total and annualized cost to the
Federal Government for this research project. Since this project's
activities will span a single year the total and annualized costs are
identical. The estimated total cost is $409,388.
Exhibit 3--Estimated Total and Annual Cost * to the Federal Government
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Annualized
Cost component Total cost cost
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Administration and Coordination $91,673 $91,673
Activities.............................
Technical Expert Panel.................. 74,217 74,217
Environmental Scan and Grey Literature 58,413 58,413
Review.................................
OMB Submission Package.................. 11,574 11,574
Interviews with Study Participants...... 102,018 102,018
Recommendations for Health IT Vendors 48,612 48,612
and Developers.........................
Dissemination Activities................ 14,325 14,325
508 Compliance.......................... 8,556 8,556
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Total............................... 409,388 409,388
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* Costs are fully loaded including overhead, G&A and fees.
Request for Comments
In accordance with the above-cited Paperwork Reduction Act
legislation, comments on AHRQ's information collection are requested
with regard to any of the following: (a) Whether the proposed
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of
AHRQ healthcare research and healthcare information dissemination
functions, including whether the information will have practical
utility; (b) the accuracy of AHRQ's estimate of burden (including hours
and costs) of the proposed collection(s) of information; (c) ways to
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be
collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of
information upon the respondents, including the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized
and included in the Agency's subsequent request for OMB approval of the
proposed information collection. All comments will become a matter of
public record.
[[Page 4910]]
Dated: January 14, 2011.
Carolyn M. Clancy,
Director.
[FR Doc. 2011-1544 Filed 1-26-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-90-M