[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 99 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 23640-23641]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-10728]


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DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

[OMB Control No. 2900-New]


Agency Information Collection Activity: Service Level 
Measurement--VHA Telehealth Survey

AGENCY: Veterans Experience Office, Department of Veterans Affairs.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Veterans Experience Office (VEO), Department of Veterans 
Affairs (VA), is announcing an opportunity for public comment on the 
proposed collection of certain information by the agency. Under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, Federal agencies are required to 
publish notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed 
collection of information, including each proposed extension of a 
currently approved collection, and allow 60 days for public comment in 
response to the notice.

DATES: Written comments and recommendations on the proposed collection 
of information should be received on or before July 22, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Submit written comments on the collection of information 
through Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) at www.Regulations.gov 
or to Michael Jacobsen, Veterans Experience Office, Department of 
Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20420 or email 
to [email protected]. Please refer to ``Service Level 
Measurement--Telehealth'' in any correspondence. During the comment 
period, comments may be viewed online through FDMS.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Danny S. Green at (202) 421-1354.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the PRA of 1995, Federal agencies must 
obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each 
collection of information they conduct or sponsor. This request for 
comment is being made pursuant to Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the PRA.
    With respect to the following collection of information, VEO 
invites comments on: (1) Whether the proposed collection of information 
is necessary for the proper performance of VEO's functions, including 
whether the information will have practical utility; (2) the accuracy 
of VEO's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of 
information; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected; and (4) ways to minimize the burden of 
the collection of information on respondents, including through the use

[[Page 23641]]

of automated collection techniques or the use of other forms of 
information technology.
    Authority: OMB Circular A-11 (2018), Section 280.
    Title: Service Level Measurement--VHA Telehealth Survey.
    OMB Control Number: 2900-New.
    Type of Review: New collection.
    Abstract: The Enterprise Measurement and Design team (EMD) team is 
tasked with conducting transactional surveys of the Veteran population 
to measure their satisfaction with the Department of Veterans Affairs 
(VA) numerous services. Thus, their mission is to empower Veterans by 
rapidly collecting feedback on their interactions with such VA entities 
as NCA, VHA, and VBA.
    The Veteran Health Administration (VHA) oversees the largest health 
care system in the country and, to assure access to high quality health 
care services to all veterans, has been a leader in the adoption of 
telecommunications technologies that allow for convenient, accessible, 
and patient-centered care when patient and practitioners are separated 
by geographical distance. The Veterans Experience Office (VEO) was 
procured by VHA to measure the customer satisfaction of veterans 
receiving telehealth. The Telehealth Survey measures customer 
satisfaction at multiple levels from VHA-wide, to services type, to 
point of service. This measurement is intended to bring insights and 
value to wide variety of stakeholders at VA. Front-line VA leaders can 
resolve individual feedback from Veterans and take steps to improve the 
patient experience; meanwhile VA executives can receive real-time 
updates on systematic trends allowing them to monitor veteran 
experience with telehealth during this key transformational period of 
telehealth expansion and beyond. The goals are to:
    (1) To collect continuous patient experience data.
    (2) To help field staff and the national office identify areas of 
improvement.
    (3) To understand emerging drivers and detractors of patient 
experience.
    To accomplish this task, the VEO will invite, via email, a random 
sample of veterans that recently received telehealth services to 
complete a brief transactional online survey. Samples will be drawn two 
times a week to ensure that veterans can accurately recall their most 
recent telehealth encounter. The selected veterans are given two weeks 
to respond to the survey, receiving an email reminding them about the 
survey invitation if they did not respond one week after the initial 
email. Sampled veterans will report their experiences through Likert-
scale questions designed to measure the customer experience driver 
metrics published by OMB in the A-11 Budget Directive. Sampled veterans 
will also be asked to respond to an open-ended question about their 
experience with the telehealth encounter that will allow them to 
provide any further information about their experience that was not 
captured in the previous questions. Once data collection is completed, 
the participant responses in the online survey will be weighted so that 
the samples more closely represent the overall population. Weighting 
models will rely on the following: Telehealth modality, patient 
touchpoint, district, age, and gender. Weighted estimates will be 
published through dashboards on the Veteran Signals (VSignals) system 
for interactive reporting and data visualization.
    This data collection was previously approved and conducted under 
the VA Generic Clearance Number 2900-0770: Generic Clearance for the 
Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery. Under 
this clearance, the VEO could collect and report this data to 
stakeholders internal to VA for program and procedure improvement. 
However, OMB Circular A-11 (2018), Section 280, directs VEO to present 
the standardized customer experience driver metrics from this survey to 
the public through Performance.gov, which was not allowed under Generic 
Clearance Number 2900-0770. Therefore, the VEO is creating a new 
information collection request to be able to present the VHA Telehealth 
estimates to meet this directive.
    Affected Public: Individuals.
    Estimated Annual Burden: 2,000 hours.
    Estimated Average Burden per Respondent: 2 minutes.
    Frequency of Response: Once.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 60,000.

    By direction of the Secretary.
Danny S. Green,
Interim VA Clearance Officer, Office of Quality, Performance and Risk, 
Department of Veterans Affairs.
[FR Doc. 2019-10728 Filed 5-21-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 8320-01-P