[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 18 (Thursday, January 27, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4908-4910]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing 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 
[email protected].
    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 
[email protected].

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
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Semi-structured interviews......................              15              23          $76.94          $1,770
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    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
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                            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
                                         -------------------------------
    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