[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 37 (Wednesday, February 25, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10096-10098]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-03826]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-15-0824]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of 
its continuing effort to reduce public burden and maximize the utility 
of government information, invites the general public and other Federal 
agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or 
continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995. To request more information on the below 
proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information collection plan 
and instruments, call 404-639-7570 or send

[[Page 10097]]

comments to Leroy A. Richardson, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 
30333 or send an email to [email protected].
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) approval. 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; (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; and (e) 
estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, 
maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden 
means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by 
persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information 
to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review 
instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and 
systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying 
information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and 
providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to 
a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and 
review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise 
disclose the information. Written comments should be received within 60 
days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    National Syndromic Surveillance Program (BioSense, OMB Control No. 
0920-0824, Expiration Date 10/31/2015)--Revision--Center for 
Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services (CSELS), Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    The BioSense Program was created by congressional mandate as part 
of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and 
Response Act of 2002 and was launched by the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2003. The BioSense Program has since 
been expanded into the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) 
to promote the use of high-quality syndromic surveillance data for 
improved nationwide all-hazard situational awareness for public health 
decision making and enhanced responses to hazardous events and 
outbreaks.
    NSSP is a collaboration among individuals and organizations from 
the local, state, and federal levels of public health; other federal 
agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department 
of Veterans Affairs (VA); and associations of public health officials, 
including the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. 
NSSP includes a community of practice, a stakeholder governance 
process, and a cloud-based syndromic surveillance platform (the NSSP 
platform) that hosts the BioSense application and other analytic tools 
and services.
    Syndromic surveillance is a process that regularly and 
systematically uses health and health-related data in near real-time to 
make information on the health of a community available to public 
health officials. Patient encounter, laboratory, and pharmacy data from 
healthcare settings including emergency departments, urgent care, 
ambulatory care and inpatient settings provide critical information for 
syndromic surveillance and are used by public health agencies under 
authorities granted to them by applicable local and state laws.
    CDC requests a three-year approval for a Revision for NSSP 
(BioSense, OMB Control No. 0920-0824, Expiration Date 10/31/2015). With 
this revision, CDC also requests the following collection title: 
National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). The NSSP will continue 
to receive and processes four different types of information: (1) 
Contact information for state and local public health officials who 
wish to have data from their jurisdictions submitted to NSSP 
(recruitment data); (2) contact information for public health officials 
and other new users needed to provide them with access to the NSSP 
Platform (registration data); (3) NSSP user information needed to 
determine for development of the NSSP platform and to assess the 
usability of the platform (user data) (since the number of respondents 
will not exceed nine non-federal users to assess usability, the 
associated burden is not applicable to this request); and (4) existing 
healthcare encounter, pharmacy, and laboratory data (healthcare data) 
without personally identifiable information (PII).
    As in the past, healthcare data will continue to be submitted to 
NSSP by state and local health departments or hospitals in those 
jurisdictions, federal agencies including the VA, DoD, a national level 
private sector clinical laboratory, and a private sector health 
information exchange company.
    In addition, healthcare data will be submitted from urgent care, 
ambulatory care and inpatient settings. The inclusion of these 
additional data in NNSP is consistent with the Department of Health and 
Human Services' criteria for the ``meaningful use'' by public health of 
electronic health records for syndromic surveillance.
    There are no costs to respondents other than their time. 
Respondents in this data submission include state and local public 
health jurisdictions, federal agencies, and the private sector 
providers of healthcare, laboratory and pharmacy data.
    Though a large number of electronic health records are transmitted 
to NSSP, once the automated interfaces are set up for transmission 
(developing the data sharing agreements), there is no burden for record 
transmission. The estimated annual burden is 51 hours.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                           Number of      Average burden per
       Type of respondents             Number of         responses per       response (in      Total burden (in
                                      respondents         respondent            hours)              hours)
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                                       Recruitment Information Collection
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State and Local Public Health                     20                   1                   1                  20
 Jurisdictions..................
Federal Government..............                   2                   1                   1                   2
Private Sector..................                   3                   1                   1                   3
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                                       Registration Information Collection
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State and Local Public Health                    200                   1                5/60                  17
 Jurisdictions..................

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Federal Government..............                  30                   1                5/60                   3
Private Sector..................                  50                   1                5/60                   4
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              Healthcare Information Collection: Administrator Data Sharing Agreements/Permissions
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State and Local Public Health                     20                   1                5/60                   2
 Jurisdictions..................
Federal Government..............                   2                   0                5/60                   0
Private Sector..................                   3                   0                   0                   0
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    Total.......................  ..................  ..................  ..................                  51
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Leroy A. Richardson,
Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific 
Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the 
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2015-03826 Filed 2-24-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P