[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 233 (Monday, December 7, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64087-64088]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-29107]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-10-10AK)


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    In compliance with the requirement of Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 for opportunity for public comment on 
proposed data collection projects, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) will publish periodic summaries of proposed projects. 
To request more information on the proposed projects or to obtain a 
copy of the data collection plans and instruments, call 404-639-5960 or 
send comments to Maryam Daneshvar, CDC Reports Clearance Officer, 1600 
Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or send an e-mail to 
[email protected].
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection 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 on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology. Written comments should be received 
within 60 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    National Notifiable Condition Messaging Support Strategy 
Questionnaire--New--National Center for Public Health Informatics 
(NCPHI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    The Public Health Services Act (42 U.S.C. 241) authorizes CDC to 
disseminate nationally notifiable condition information. CDC's 
Morbidity and Morality Weekly Report publishes incidence and prevalence 
tables for nationally notifiable conditions reported through the 
National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) and other 
surveillance data sources to the National Notifiable Diseases 
Surveillance System (NNDSS).
    NEDSS (OMB 0920-0728) is an internet-based infrastructure for 
public health surveillance data exchange that uses specific Public 
Health Information Network (PHIN) and NEDSS electronic data and 
information standards to advance the development of efficient, 
integrated, and interoperable surveillance systems at federal, state 
and local levels. CDC's NCPHI is responsible for establishing and 
managing the national reporting system of epidemiologic data for 
notifiable conditions (diseases) via NEDSS.
    Case notification messaging for most of the nationally notifiable 
conditions (77 infectious conditions as of August 2009) will eventually 
be supported by the standard Health Level 7 (HL7) message format. The 
HL7 message format requires a Message Mapping Guide (MMG)--developed by 
the NEDSS and NNDSS programs, in collaboration with state and federal 
subject matter experts--to implement case notification to CDC via 
NEDSS. By the close of 2009, MMGs are expected to be published for 
seven nationally notifiable conditions. Current NEDSS resources support 
the development of three new MMGs per year. A jurisdiction's 
implementation of a MMG requires an average of three months per MMG and 
largely requires NCPHI's programmatic and technical expertise during 
this process.
    The National Notifiable Condition Messaging Support Strategy 
Questionnaire has been developed by the NEDSS program to gather 
information needed for formulating a technical and project management 
support strategy for 57 reporting jurisdictions (i.e., 50 states, 5 
territories, New York City, and Washington, DC) as they implement NEDSS 
messaging using Message Mapping Guides (MMG). A jurisdiction's response 
to the questionnaire will be used by the NEDSS implementation and

[[Page 64088]]

management teams to assess the jurisdiction's IT system environment and 
capacity and help determine the project schedule and level of human and 
technical support needed to complete the jurisdiction's implementation 
of a nationally notifiable condition message. NEDSS infrastructure 
implementation support includes, but is not limited to: Implementing 
NEDSS Message Subscription Service (MSS) and NEDSS Messaging Solution 
(NMS) software in requesting jurisdictions; providing MSS and NMS 
software training and ongoing technical support; and distributing 
funding via the CDC Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity cooperative 
agreement.
    Questionnaires will be distributed to jurisdictions who initiate 
MMG implementation for a condition; therefore, the maximum annual 
frequency of responses per jurisdiction is three. The NEDSS team will 
request the jurisdiction to voluntarily complete the questionnaire, but 
a response is not a pre-requisite for support.
    There is no cost to respondents other than their time to 
participate in the survey.

                                       Estimate of Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                     Number of    Average burden
                   Respondents                       Number of     responses per   per response    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)      (in hours)
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States..........................................              50               3           40/60             100
Territories.....................................               5               3           40/60              10
Cities..........................................               2               3           40/60               4
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................................  ..............  ..............  ..............             114
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    Dated: December 1, 2009.
Maryam I. Daneshvar,
Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. E9-29107 Filed 12-4-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P