[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]
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