[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 107 (Friday, June 3, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 33792-33794]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-11883]


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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 ``Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers 
and Systems (Child HCAHPS) Survey Database.''

DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by August 2, 2022.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to: Doris Lefkowitz, 
Reports Clearance Officer, AHRQ, by email 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 emails at 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Proposed Project

Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems 
(Child HCAHPS) Survey Database

    The Child Hospital CAHPS Survey (Child HCAHPS) assesses the 
experiences of pediatric patients (less than 18 years old) and their 
parents or guardians with inpatient care. It complements the Adult 
Hospital CAHPS Survey (Adult HCAHPS), which asks adult inpatients about 
their experiences. The Child HCAHPS Database is a voluntary database 
available to all Child HCAHPS users to support both quality improvement 
and research to enhance the patient-centeredness of care delivered to 
pediatric hospital patients.
    Rationale for the information collection. Like the survey 
instrument itself and related toolkit materials to support survey 
implementation, aggregated Child HCAHPS Database results are made 
publicly available on AHRQ's CAHPS website. Technical assistance is 
provided by AHRQ through its contractor at no charge to hospitals to 
facilitate the access and use of these materials for quality 
improvement and research. Technical assistance is also provided to 
support Child HCAHPS data submission.
    The Child HCAHPS Database supports AHRQ's goals of promoting 
improvements in the quality and patient-centeredness of health care in 
pediatric hospital settings. This research has the following goals:
    1. Improve care provided by individual hospitals and hospital 
systems.
    2. Offer several products and services, including providing survey 
results presented through an Online Reporting System, summary 
chartbooks, custom analyses, private reports and data for research 
purposes.
    3. Provides information to help identify strengths and areas with 
potential for improvement in patient care.
    Survey data from the Child HCAHPS Database will be used to produce 
three types of reporting products:
     Hospital Feedback Reports. Hospitals that submit data will 
have access to a customized report that presents findings for their 
individual submission along with results from the database overall. 
These ``private'' hospital feedback reports will display sortable 
results for each of the Child HCAHPS core composite measures and

[[Page 33793]]

for each individual survey item that forms the composite measure.
     Child HCAHPS Chartbook. A summary-level Chartbook will be 
compiled to display top box and other proportional scores for the Child 
HCAHPS items and composite measures broken out by selected hospital 
characteristics (e.g., region, hospital size, ownership and 
affiliation, etc.).
     AHRQ Data Tools website. Aggregate results also will be 
made publicly available through an interactive, web-based system that 
allows users to view survey items and composite results in a variety of 
formats.
    The OMB Control Number for the Child HCAHPS Survey Database is 
0935-0243, which was last approved by OMB on July 24, 2019, and will 
expire on July 30, 2022.
    This study is being conducted by AHRQ through its contractor, 
Westat, pursuant to AHRQ's statutory authority to conduct and support 
research on health care and on systems for the delivery of such care, 
including activities with respect to: the quality, effectiveness, 
efficiency, appropriateness and value of healthcare services; quality 
measurement and improvement; and health surveys and database 
development. 42 U.S.C. 299a(a)(1), (2), and (8).

Method of Collection

    To achieve the goals of this project, the following activities and 
data collections that constitute information collection under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act will be implemented:
     Registration with the submission website to obtain an 
account with a secure username and password. The point-of-contact 
(POC), often the hospital, completes a number of data submission steps 
and forms, beginning with the completion of the online registration 
form. The purpose of this form is to collect basic contact information 
about the organization and initiate the registration process;
     Submission of signed Data Use Agreements (DUAs) and survey 
questionnaires. The purpose of the data use agreement, completed by the 
participating hospital, is to state how data submitted by or on behalf 
of hospitals will be used and provides confidentiality assurances;
     Submission of hospital information form. The purpose of 
this form completed by the participating organization, is to collect 
background characteristics of the hospital; and
     Follow-up with submitters in the event of a rejected file, 
to assist in making corrections and resubmitting the file.

Estimated Annual Respondent Burden

    Exhibit 1 shows the estimated burden hours for the respondent to 
participate in the database. The 302 POCs in Exhibit 1 are a 
combination of an estimated 300 hospitals that currently administer the 
Child HCAHPS survey and the two survey vendors assisting them.
    Each hospital will register online for submission. The online 
Registration form will require about 5 minutes to complete. Each 
submitter will also complete a hospital information form. The online 
hospital information form takes on average 5 minutes to complete. The 
DUA will be completed by each of the 300 participating hospitals. 
Survey vendors do not sign or submit DUAs. The DUA requires about 3 
minutes to sign and upload to the online submission system. Each 
submitter, which in most cases will be the survey vendor performing the 
data collection, will provide a copy of their questionnaire and the 
survey data file in the required file format. Survey data files must 
conform to the data file layout specifications provided by the Child 
HCAHPS Database. Since the unit of analysis is at the hospital level, 
submitters will upload one data file per hospital. Once a data file is 
uploaded, the file will be automatically checked to ensure it conforms 
to the specifications and a data file status report will be produced 
and made available to the submitter. Submitters will review each report 
and will be expected to correct any errors in their data file and 
resubmit if necessary. It will take about one hour to submit the data 
for each hospital. The total burden is estimated to be 365 hours 
annually.

                                  Exhibit 1--Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                     Number of       Number of
                    Form name                      respondents/    responses per     Hours per     Total burden
                                                       POCs             POC          response          hours
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Registration Form...............................             300               1            5/60              25
Hospital Information Form.......................             300               1            5/60              25
Data Use Agreement..............................             300               1            3/60              15
Data Files Submission...........................               2             150               1             300
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................................              NA              NA              NA             365
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    Exhibit 2 shows the estimated annualized cost burden based on the 
respondents' time to complete one submission process. The cost burden 
is estimated to be $18,076 annually.

                                   Exhibit 2--Estimated Annualized Cost Burden
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                                                     Number of     Total burden   Average hourly    Total cost
                    Form name                       respondents        hours        wage rate *       burden
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Registration Form...............................             300              25       57.12 \a\          $1,428
Hospital Information Form.......................             300              25       57.12 \a\           1,428
Data Use Agreement..............................             300              15       95.12 \b\           1,426
Data Files Submission...........................               2             300       45.98 \c\          13,794
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................................          302 **             365              NA          18,076
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* National Compensation Survey: Occupational wages in the United States May 2020, ``U.S. Department of Labor,
  Bureau of Labor Statistics.''

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(a) Based on the mean hourly wage for Medical and Health Services Managers (11-9111).
(b) Based on the mean hourly wage for Chief Executives (11-1011).
(c) Based on the mean hourly wages for Computer Programmer (15-1131).
** The 300 POC listed for the registration form, hospital information form and the data use agreement are the
  estimated POC's from the estimated participating hospitals.

Request for Comments

    In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501-
3520, 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's health 
care research and health care 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.

    Dated: May 27, 2022.
Marquita Cullom,
Associate Director.
[FR Doc. 2022-11883 Filed 6-2-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-90-P