[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 85 (Friday, May 1, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 25453-25454]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-09254]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Health Resources and Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission to OMB for 
Review and Approval; Public Comment Request; Information Collection 
Request Title: Bureau of Health Workforce Substance Use Disorder 
Evaluation, OMB No. 0906-xxxx-NEW

AGENCY: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Department 
of Health and Human Services.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, HRSA 
has submitted an Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. Comments submitted 
during the first public review of this ICR will be provided to OMB. OMB 
will accept further comments from the public during the review and 
approval period. OMB may act on HRSA's ICR only after the 30 day 
comment period for this Notice has closed.

DATES: Comments on this ICR should be received no later than June 1, 
2020.

ADDRESSES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed 
information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of 
this notice to www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. Find this particular 
information collection by selecting ``Currently under 30-day Review--
Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To request a copy of the clearance 
requests submitted to OMB for review, email Lisa Wright-Solomon, the 
HRSA Information Collection Clearance Officer at [email protected] or 
call (301) 443-1984.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Information Collection Request Title: Bureau of Health Workforce 
Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Evaluation, OMB No. 0906-xxxx-New.
    Abstract: In September 2017, HRSA's Bureau of Health Workforce 
launched a multi-part effort to increase the workforce capacity of the 
U.S. health care system to prevent and treat the opioid crisis. As a 
part of this effort, HRSA developed or expanded activities under five 
programs to help combat the crisis: (1) The National Health Service 
Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program offers loan repayment to providers 
focused on Substance Use Disorder treatment (NHSC SUD Workforce Loan 
Repayment Program (LRP)); (2) the National Health Service Corps Rural 
Communities Loan Repayment Program (NHSC Rural Communities LRP); (3) 
the Opioid Workforce Expansion Program (OWEP); (4) the Behavioral 
Health Workforce Education and Training Program (BHWET); and (5) the 
Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program. These programs provide 
either loan repayment to providers (NHSC SUD Workforce LRP, NHSC Rural 
Communities LRP), or funding for training programs for behavioral 
health professionals and paraprofessionals to increase integrated 
behavioral health into primary care treatment and interprofessional 
team-based care to high-need areas (OWEP, BHWET, GPE).
    The purpose of the planned evaluation is to assess these programs 
with respect to their stated goals of increasing access to the number 
of clinicians delivering evidence-based SUD treatment, enhancing 
education and training in substance use prevention and treatment for 
current and future health care professionals and paraprofessionals in 
rural and underserved communities, and integrating behavioral health 
into primary care to improve the capacity of the health care delivery 
system to provide SUD prevention and treatment services.
    The evaluation will include data collection through web-based 
surveys to trainees, recipients of loan repayments, grantee 
organizations, and training sites participating in HRSA's SUD 
prevention and treatment programs. At the trainee/participant level, 
questions will focus on educational and professional background; 
motivation and incentives to join or leave the program; training 
experiences; perceived readiness to deliver SUD treatment services 
(where applicable); capacity to engage in prevention strategies; and 
post-graduation employment (where applicable). At the recipient grantee 
organization level (note: This level is not relevant to the NHSC 
programs), questions will focus on recruitment and retention of 
students, how their SUD prevention and treatment training program 
curriculum was developed, as applicable, collaboration with SUD 
prevention and treatment training sites, plans for sustainability of 
SUD prevention and treatment activities, as well as any other benefits 
that resulted from the program. At the site level, questions will focus 
on SUD prevention and treatment training such as addressing motivation 
for the site to participate, whether and what type of integrated care 
delivery is available, and other organizational factors of the site. At 
all three levels, and for all programs, we will collect survey SUD 
prevention and treatment training data on satisfaction with the program 
and recommendations for improving it.
    In total, six survey instruments will be used in this evaluation: 
(1) NHSC SUD Workforce Loan Repayment Program/NHSC Rural Communities 
Loan Repayment Program/NHSC Loan Repayment Program--Participant Survey; 
(2) NHSC Loan Repayment Program-- Site Survey; (3) Grantee Training and 
Educational Programs--Trainee Survey; (4) Grantee Training and 
Educational Programs--Alumni Survey; (5) Grantee Training and 
Educational Programs--Site Survey; and (6) Grantee Training and 
Educational Programs--Grantee Organization Survey. As part of a 
comprehensive questionnaire design process, questions will be limited 
and refined to collect information not available through secondary 
sources. Any data collected will not be duplicative of that collected 
under progress reports or other HRSA grant monitoring. NHSC site and 
participant survey questions will be drawn from prior NHSC Satisfaction 
Surveys, which were fielded in 2017 and 2018 but were discontinued. 
Skip patterns will allow respondents to answer only relevant questions 
for each of their programs. Participation in all surveys is voluntary, 
and all surveys

[[Page 25454]]

will be fielded annually for three years beginning in 2020 and 
concluding at the end of 2022 to include each annual cohort of trainees 
and participants. Each trainee, participant, or site will complete 
their respective surveys one time.
    A 60-day notice published in the Federal Register on January 24, 
2020, vol. 85, No. 16; pp. 4327-29. There were no public comments.
    Need and Proposed Use of the Information: The purpose of this 
effort is to evaluate HRSA's SUD prevention and treatment expansion 
program investments with respect to the following objectives:
     Objective 1: What is the impact of the NHSC SUD Workforce 
LRP and the NHSC Rural Communities LRP on the provision of SUD services 
in underserved areas compared to those who participate in the non-SUD 
NHSC LRP?
     Objective 2: How are the activities in the BHWET, GPE, and 
OWEP programs contributing to the expansion of service delivery for SUD 
prevention and treatment, at the individual, educational, and service-
delivery system levels?
     Objective 3: To what extent are HRSA's programs successful 
at increasing access to treatment for SUD, including opioid treatment 
services?
    The survey data will be critical to understanding the factors 
related to the success of current HRSA programs, and assist in the 
development of future programs and ongoing SUD prevention and treatment 
workforce policy development.
    Likely Respondents: Data will be collected from trainees, grantee 
organizations, and sites participating in HRSA's SUD prevention and 
treatment expansion programs as described below.
    NHSC SUD Workforce Loan Repayment Program/NHSC Rural Communities 
LRP/NHSC LRP--Participants Survey: All NHSC SUD Workforce LRP 
participants, NHSC Rural Communities LRP participants, and NHSC 
traditional LRP participants who have served at an NHSC site for at 
least nine months will be invited to respond. Respondents will also 
include those whom have exited a program early to understand reasons 
for termination.
    NHSC Loan Repayment Program--Site Survey: All sites that were 
approved to receive NHSC resources, regardless if they currently have a 
participant on staff will be invited to respond.
    Grantee Training and Educational Programs--Trainee Survey: All 
individuals identified by a grantee as currently receiving training as 
part of one of the grantee training and educational programs will be 
invited to respond. Respondents will also include those who have exited 
a program early, to understand reasons for termination.
    Grantee Training and Educational Programs--Alumni Survey: All 
individuals who completed the Grantee Training and Educational Program 
Trainee Survey but had not completed their training at the time of the 
trainee survey, will be invited to respond to this short survey which 
will ask about employment since graduation.
    Grantee Training and Educational Programs--Site Survey: All sites 
that were approved to receive BHWET, OWEP, or GPE trainees, regardless 
of whether they currently have trainees, will be invited to respond.
    Grantee Training and Educational Programs--Grantee Organization 
Survey: All grantee organizations that received awards in fiscal year 
(FY) 2018 for the BHWET program, and received FY 2019 awards for the 
GPE and OWEP programs will be invited to respond.
    Burden Statement: Burden in this context means the time expended by 
persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide the 
information requested. 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. The total annual burden hours estimated for 
this ICR are summarized in the table below.

                                    Total Estimated Annualized Burden--Hours
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                                                     Number of                    Average burden
            Form name                Number of     responses per       Total       per response    Total burden
                                    respondents     respondent       responses      (in hours)         hours
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NHSC Loan Repayment Programs-              8,000               1           8,000            0.33           2,640
 Participant Survey.............
NHSC Loan Repayment Programs-             18,000               1          18,000            0.33           5,940
 Site Survey....................
Grantee Programs- Trainee Survey           8,000               1           8,000            0.33           2,640
Grantee Programs- Alumni Survey.           2,000               1           2,000            0.16             320
Grantee Programs- Site Survey...           5,000               1           5,000            0.33           1,650
Grantee Programs- Grantee                    300               1             300            0.33              99
 Organization Survey............
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    Total.......................          41,300  ..............          41,300  ..............          13,289
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Maria G. Button,
Director, Executive Secretariat.
[FR Doc. 2020-09254 Filed 4-30-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4165-15-P