[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 226 (Wednesday, November 23, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 72414-72416]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-30047]
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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: ``Assessing the Feasibility of Disseminating EHC Products
through Educational Activities.'' In accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521, AHRQ invites the public to comment
on this proposed information collection.
DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by January 23, 2012.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to: Doris Lefkowitz,
Reports Clearance Officer, AHRQ, by email 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 email at
doris.lefkowitz@AHRQ.hhs.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Proposed Project
Assessing the Feasibility of Disseminating EHC Products Through
Educational Activities
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) requests that
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve under the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 this collection of information from users of
products provided by the John M. Eisenberg Clinical Decisions and
Communications Science Center (Eisenberg Center). Information collected
consists of feedback from managers, instructors, and learners about
these health care guides and other products presented as part of
Continuing Medical Education activities.
AHRQ is the lead agency charged with supporting research designed
to improve the quality of healthcare, reduce its cost, improve patient
safety, decrease medical errors, and broaden access to essential
services. AHRQ's Eisenberg Center's mission is improving communication
of research findings to a variety of audiences (``customers''),
including consumers, clinicians, and health care policy makers. The
Eisenberg Center compiles research results into useful formats for
customer stakeholders. The Eisenberg Center also conducts
investigations into effective communication of research findings in
order to improve the usability and rapid incorporation of findings into
medical practice. The Eisenberg Center is one of three components of
AHRQ's Effective Health Care (EHC) Program.
A primary goal of the Eisenberg Center is to translate results from
systematic reviews of evidence comparing the effectiveness of two or
more clinical care processes into information that can be used to
support clinical decision-making. The major products of such efforts
are brief guides designed for clinicians, patients, and policymakers
that summarize the evidence concerning the effectiveness of various
diagnostic and treatment processes. All of the guides and other
products are designed to help decision makers, including clinicians and
health care consumers, use research evidence to maximize the benefits
of health care, minimize harm, and optimize the use of health care
resources.
The collections proposed under this project include activities to
assess the feasibility of disseminating EHC products through Continuing
Medical Education (CME) activities, specifically those planned and
implemented by member organizations of the Society of Academic
Continuing Medical Education (SACME). SACME is an organization with
members in both the U.S. and Canada formed in 1976 to ``promote the
research, scholarship, evaluation and development of CME and Continuing
Professional Development (CPD) that helps to enhance the performance of
physicians and other healthcare professionals practicing in the United
States, Canada, and elsewhere for purposes of improving individual and
population health.''
For this project, the Eisenberg Center will work with six
organizations selected from applications submitted by SACME members
that had been invited to compete for funding. The Eisenberg Center
selected sites based on the size of each organization's CME audience,
the project's ability to inform the CME community, its degree of
generalizability and replicability, and overall quality. Organizations
selected for participation in the feasibility study have committed to
specific activities designed to disseminate EHC Program summary guides
to physicians, other clinicians, instructional faculty, and clinical
researchers who participate in CME activities. Another partner in these
efforts is the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which
is assisting the project through access to MedEdPORTAL and CME4docs,
two recently launched initiatives that are designed to encourage use of
high quality CME resources by medical school faculty and others
involved in development and delivery of CME.
This research has the following goals:
(1) Identify critical factors that enhance or impede integration of
EHC products into CME activities;
(2) Assess strategies to remove, overcome, or work around barriers
to integration of EHC products into CME programming with selected
audiences;
(3) Confirm approaches that can be used in whole or in part to
create and deliver effective CME instruction about EHC products (e.g.,
clinician guides, consumer guides, faculty slide sets); and
(4) Review early educational program outcomes associated with
integration of EHC products into CME activities.
This study is being conducted by AHRQ through its contractor, the
Eisenberg Center--Baylor College of Medicine (EC-BMC), pursuant to
AHRQ's statutory authority to conduct and support research, and
disseminate information, on healthcare and on systems for the delivery
of such care, including activities with respect to both the quality,
effectiveness, efficiency, appropriateness and value of healthcare
services and clinical practice. 42 U.S.C. 299a(a)(1) and (4).
Method of Collection
To achieve the goals of this project the following activities and
data collections will be implemented:
(1) Interviews with CME Project Directors--Semi-structured
interviews will be conducted with the representative of each
participating CME institution leading the development and
implementation of the educational activities associated with the study.
The director is typically, but not always, an expert physician. The
interviews will be designed to: (a) Assess perceived feasibility and
obtain feedback on strategies used to integrate EHC products into their
planned CME activities involving varied content, instructional methods,
and delivery formats; and b) characterize barriers and facilitators to
the integration of EHC products into specific CME activities.
(2) Focus Group with CME Project Directors--A focus group will also
be convened with the CME Project
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Directors described above near the midpoint of the project to: (a)
Obtain feedback on the perceived usefulness, currency and quality of
the EHC products; and (b) explore the overall implications concerning
CME activities as an avenue for disseminating EHC products.
(3) Interviews with Faculty Members--Semi-structured interviews
will be conducted with clinicians who served as faculty in the CME
activities associated with this study to: (a) Obtain perspectives on
the quality, relevance, and utility of the resources that they accessed
and integrated into their CME activities; (b) identify obstacles to the
integration of EHC products into specific CME activities and contexts;
and (c) identify additional tools or resources that could facilitate
the integration of EHC content into CME activities.
(4) Initial Survey Assessments of CME Participants--Learner
questionnaires will be administered to each clinician participating in
a CME activity to determine the degree to which the learning activities
with integrated EHC products affected educational outcomes such as
levels of knowledge about specific clinical treatment issues and
incorporation of new knowledge into clinical practice. The initial
questionnaire will be distributed by paper or electronically at the
immediate conclusion of participation in the CME activity.
(5) Follow-up Survey Assessments of CME Participants--A second
questionnaire will be distributed electronically two months after each
activity to each clinician learner and will be accessible through the
Eisenberg Center Web site. An email message will be sent to invite
participation and will include a link to the questionnaire. Gathering
such data will provide a view of current awareness of EHC products and
learners' intentions to use the products in practice as well as
perceptions of barriers to implementation.
The collected data will be used to determine the feasibility of:
(a) Including EHC products (i.e., clinician guides, consumer guides,
faculty slide sets) in CME activities that employ varied delivery
modalities; and b) initiating additional studies to identify factors
that promote effective integration of evidence-based content into
educational activities. The data gathered from physicians and other
clinical professionals who are participating in CME activities will
foster understanding of the current state of awareness of and
willingness to learn about results from comparative effectiveness
research studies. The planned assessment approaches will promote better
understanding of strategies that are most appropriate for use in
incorporating comparativeness effectiveness research findings into CME
activities, as well as understanding which strategies produce desired
educational outcomes and are most acceptable to targeted learners--in
this case clinical professionals. The information generated will be
used in designing learning programs for delivery through the Eisenberg
Center for Clinical Decisions and Communications Science and will be
shared with others in the CME community through journal articles, Web-
based publications, and scientific presentations.
Estimated Annual Respondent Burden
Exhibit 1 shows the estimated annualized burden for the
respondents' time to participate in this research. Interviews will be
conducted with each CME Project Director and will last about 30
minutes, while the focus group will last about 90 minutes. A maximum of
30 interviews will be conducted with CME faculty members. These are
estimated to take 30 minutes to complete. The initial survey assessment
of CME participant learners will take about 5 minutes to complete per
questionnaire, as will the follow-up survey assessment. These
questionnaires will be administered to the approximately 4,500
clinicians who will complete one of the study's CME activities. Each
learner will be asked to complete both the initial and follow-up
surveys.
Exhibit 1--Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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Number of
Type of data collection Number of responses per Hours per Total burden
respondents respondent response hours
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Interviews with CME Project Directors........... 10 1 30/60 5
Focus Group with CME Project Directors.......... 10 1 1.5 15
Interviews with Faculty Members................. 30 1 30/60 15
Initial Survey Assessment of CME Participants... 4,500 1 5/60 375
Follow up Survey Assessment of CME Participants. 4,500 1 5/60 375
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Total....................................... 9,050 na na 785
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Exhibit 2 shows the estimated annualized cost burden associated
with the respondent's time to participate in this research. The total
annual cost burden is estimated to be $65,233.
Exhibit 2--Estimated Annualized Cost Burden
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Average
Type of data collection Number of Total burden hourly wage Total cost
respondents hours rate burden
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Interviews with CME Project Directors........... 10 5 * $64.31 $322
Focus Group with CME Project Directors.......... 10 15 * 64.31 965
Interviews with Faculty Members................. 30 15 ** 83.59 1,254
Initial Survey Assessment of CME Participants... 4,500 375 ** 83.59 31,346
Follow up Survey Assessment of CME Participants. 4,500 375 ** 83.59 31,346
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Total....................................... 9,050 785 na 65,233
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* Based upon the mean wages tor clinicians (29-1062 family and general practitioners health services managers
(11-9111), National Compensation Survey: Occupational wages in the United States May 2010, U.S. Department of
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm.
** Based upon the mean wages for clinicians (29-1062 family and general practitioners), National Compensation
Survey: Occupational wages in the United States May 2010, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm.
Estimated Annual Cost to the Government
Exhibit 3 shows the total and annualized cost by the major cost
components. The maximum cost to the Federal Government is estimated to
be $166,417 annually.
Exhibit 3--Estimated Total and Annualized Cost
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Cost component Total cost Annualized cost
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Project Development............. $110,846 $55,423
Data Collection Activities...... 47,563 23,781
Data Processing and Analysis.... 38,250 19,125
Project Management.............. 73,675 36,838
Overhead........................ 62,500 31,250
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Total....................... 332,834 166,417
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Request for Comments
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, 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; (e) 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.
Dated: November 10, 2011.
Carolyn M. Clancy,
Director.
[FR Doc. 2011-30047 Filed 11-22-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-90-M