55796 Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 185 / Monday, September 25, 2006 / Notices 

FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

Formations of, Acquisitions by, and 

Mergers of Bank Holding Companies 

The companies listed in this notice 

have applied to the Board for approval, 

pursuant to the Bank Holding Company 

Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.) 

(BHC Act), Regulation Y (12 CFR Part 

225), and all other applicable statutes 

and regulations to become a bank 

holding company and/or to acquire the 

assets or the ownership of, control of, or 

the power to vote shares of a bank or 

bank holding company and all of the 

banks and nonbanking companies 

owned by the bank holding company, 

including the companies listed below. 

The applications listed below, as well 

as other related filings required by the 

Board, are available for immediate 

inspection at the Federal Reserve Bank 

indicated. The application also will be 

available for inspection at the offices of 

the Board of Governors. Interested 

persons may express their views in 

writing on the standards enumerated in 

the BHC Act (12 U.S.C. 1842(c)). If the 

proposal also involves the acquisition of 

a nonbanking company, the review also 

includes whether the acquisition of the 

nonbanking company complies with the 

standards in section 4 of the BHC Act 

(12 U.S.C. 1843). Unless otherwise 

noted, nonbanking activities will be 

conducted throughout the United States. 

Additional information on all bank 

holding companies may be obtained 

from the National Information Center 

website at www.ffiec.gov/nic/. 

Unless otherwise noted, comments 

regarding each of these applications 

must be received at the Reserve Bank 

indicated or the offices of the Board of 

Governors not later than October 20, 

2006. 

A. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 

(Glenda Wilson, Community Affairs 

Officer) 411 Locust Street, St. Louis, 

Missouri 63166-2034: 

1. Citizens First Corporation, Bowling 

Green, Kentucky; to acquire 100 percent 

of the voting shares of Kentucky 

Banking Centers, Inc., Glasgow, 

Kentucky. 

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System, September 20, 2006. 

Robert deV. Frierson, 

Deputy Secretary of the Board. 

[FR Doc. E6–15660 Filed 9–22–06; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6210–01–S 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Agency for Healthcare Research and 

Quality 

Request for Measures of Consumers’

Home Health Care Experiences 

AGENCY: Agency for Healthcare Research 

and Quality (AHRQ), DHHS. 

ACTION: Notice of request for measures. 

SUMMARY: The Agency for Healthcare 

Research and Quality (AHRQ) is 

soliciting the submission of instruments 

or items that measure perceptions of 

patients and their informal caregivers 

regarding the quality of home health 

care these patients received from home 

health providers, health plans, other 

health care providers, stakeholders, 

vendors, researchers who include home 

health care as part of their research, and 

other interested parties. This initiative 

is in response to the need to develop a 

new CAHPs home health care survey. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 

Services is interested in incorporating 

this survey as part of its Home Health 

Quality Initiative which is intended to 

empower consumers with quality of 

care information to make more informed 

decisions about their health care while 

also encouraging Medicare certified 

home health agencies to improve the 

quality of care they deliver to all 

patients regardless of payer source. The 

survey is likely to assess the quality of 

care and services provided by nurses, 

therapists, home heath aides, medical 

social workers, and home health agency 

administrative staff. 

Based on the agency’s prior consumer 

assessment of health care work, there 

are several functional areas that this 

instrument could assess such as: 

Communication; courtesy and respect; 

information provided and shared 

decision making; coordination/ 

integration of care; time related issues 

(e.g., arrived and departed according to 

schedule, amount of time spent, visit 

frequency); competence: influence/ 

control over care giver activities; unmet 

need issues, and customer service. 

DATES: Please submit instruments and 

supporting information on or before 

October 25, 2006. AHRQ will not 

respond individually to submitters, but 

will consider all submitted instruments 

and publicly report the results of the 

review of the submissions in aggregate. 

ADDRESSES: Submissions should include 

a brief cover letter, a copy of the 

instrument or items for consideration 

and supporting information as specified 

under the Submission Criteria below. 

Submissions may be in the form of a 

letter or e-mail, preferably with an 

electronic file as an E-mail attachment. 

Responses to this request should be 

submitted to: Charles Darby, Center for 

Quality Improvement and Patient 

Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research 

and Quality, 540 Gaither Road, 

Rockville, MD 20850, Phone: (301) 427–

1324, Fax: (301) 427–1341, E-mail: 

charles.darby@ahrq.hhs.gov. 

To facilitate handling of submissions, 

please include full information about 

the instrument developer and/or a 

designated contact: (a) Name, (b) title, 

(c) organization, (d) mailing address, (e) 

telephone number, (f) fax number, and 

(g) e-mail address. Also, please submit 

a copy of the instrument or items for 

consideration, and evidence that meets 

the criteria below. It is requested that 

citation of a peer-reviewed journal 

article pertaining to the instrument to 

include the title of the article, author(s), 

publication year, journal name, volume, 

issue, and page numbers where article 

appears, be included, but is not 

required. Submitters must also provide 

a statement of willingness to grant to 

AHRQ the right to use and authorize 

others to use submitted measures and 

their documentation as part of a 

CAHPS-trademarked instrument. This 

final CAHPS instrument for collecting 

patient perspectives on the quality of 

home health care and services will be 

made publicly available, free of charge. 

Electronic submissions are encouraged. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Charles Darby, at the address above. 

Submission Criteria 

Instruments submitted should focus 

on home health care or closely related 

care areas (e.g., home care; personal 

assistant services/community based 

care) and address areas of interest such 

as: communication, information 

provided and shared decision making, 

courtesy and respect, coordination/ 

integration, time related issues (e.g., 

arrival an departed according to 

schedule, amount of time spent: visit 

frequency competence) influence/ 

control over care giver activities, unmet 

need issues, and customer service. 

Measures submitted must meet these 

criteria to be considered: capture the 

patients’ experience of home health care 

workers and agency administrative and 

demonstrate a high degree of reliability 

and validity. Submitters’ willingness to 

grant to AHRQ the right to use and 

authorize others to the instrument or 

item means that the CAHPS trademark 

will be applied to a new instrument 

combining the best features of all the 

submissions as well as any ideas that 

may develop from reviewing them. This 

will ensure free access to the 


rwilkins on PROD1PC63 with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 185 / Monday, September 25, 2006 / Notices 55797 

instrument, and free access to the 

instrument’s supportive/administrative 

information. AHRQ, in collaboration 

with CAHPS grantees, and in 

consultation with CMS, will evaluate all 

submitted instruments or items. As the 

CAHPS instrument is constructed, one 

or more instruments may be selected, 

either in whole or in part, or items may 

be modified prior to testing them. 

Submitters will relinquish ownership 

of any items that appear in the final 

instrument. However, item ownership 

will be protected during testing of the 

survey. 

The final instruments(s) will bear the 

CAHPS trademark and they will be 

made freely available for use by all 

interested parties. As a matter of quality 

control, there will be warnings that the 

CAHPS identification may not be used 

if any changes are made to the 

instrument or the final measure set or 

the methodology or instructions, 

without review and permission of the 

agency. 

Each submission should include the 

following information: the name of the 

instrument, domains included, 

language(s) the instrument is available 

in, evidence of cultural/cross group 

comparability, if any, instrument 

reliability (internal consistency, testretest, etc.), validity (content, construct, 

criterion-related), response rates, 

methods and results of cognitive testing 

and field-testing and description of 

sampling strategies (including payer 

type) and data collection protocols, 

including such elements as mode of 

administration, use of advance letters, 

timing and frequencies of contacts. In 

addition, a list of where the instrument 

has been fielded should also be 

included in the submission. Submission 

of copies of existing report formats 

developed to disclose findings to 

consumers and providers is desirable, 

but not required. Additionally, 

information about existing database(s) 

for collecting results gathered using the 

instrument(s) or items submitted is 

helpful, but not required for submission. 

Evidence of the criteria should be 

demonstrated through submission of 

peer-reviewed journal article(s) or 

through the best evidence available at 

the time of submission. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

The CAHPS program was initiated in 

1995 to develop a survey and report on 

consumers’ perspectives on the quality 

of their health plans. Since that time the 

CAHPS program, in partnership with 

CMS and others, has expanded its scope 

and developed surveys and reports 

regarding patient assessments of care 

received from individual clinicians, 

group practices, in-center hemodialysis 

services, nursing homes and hospitals. 

Now, CMS has asked the CAHPS team 

to develop a survey to obtain the 

consumer’s perspective on home health 

care and services. 

One of the top priorities of the Centers 

for Medicare & Medicaid Services is to 

increase the transparency in healthcare 

by providing quality and cost 

information to the public. One of the 

critical components missing from the 

current measurement set for home 

health agencies is information from the 

consumer perspective on the quality of 

care provided. The proposed instrument 

described above will address this need 

for useful patient assessments. 

Dated: September 19, 2006. 

Carolyn M. Clancy, 

Director. 

[FR Doc. 06–8183 Filed 9–22–06; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4160–90–M 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention 

[30Day–06–0237) 

Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork 

Act Review 

The Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention (CDC) publishes a list of 

information collection requests under 

review by the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) in compliance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 

Chapter 35). To request a copy of these 

requests, call the CDC Reports Clearance 

Officer at (404) 639–5960 or send an email to omb@cdc.gov. Send written 

comments to CDC Desk Officer, Office of 

Management and Budget, Washington, 

DC or by fax to (202) 395–6974. Written 

comments should be received within 30 

days of this notice. 

Proposed Project 

The 2007–2008 National Health and 

Nutrition Examination Survey 

NHANES—(0920–0237)—Revision—

National Center for Health Statistics 

(NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention (CDC). 

Background and Brief Description 

The National Health and Nutrition 

Examination Survey (NHANES) has 

been conducted periodically since 1970 

and continuously since 1999 by the 

National Center for Health Statistics, 

CDC. Participants will receive a 

household interview, a physical 

examination, a telephone dietary 

interview and a telephone interview. 

The telephone interview, as well as 

selected questions in the household 

interview will be referred to as the 

Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey 

(FCBS) and will include questions on 

food expenditures, diet and health 

knowledge and other food and nutrition 

topics. Of the over 13,000 individuals 

who will be screened, it is estimated 

that approximately 5,000 participants 

will be examined annually. 

Participation in the survey is completely 

voluntary and confidential. 

NHANES programs produce 

descriptive statistics which measure the 

health and nutrition status of the 

general population. Through the use of 

questionnaires, physical examinations, 

and laboratory tests, NHANES studies 

the relationship between diet, nutrition 

and health in a representative sample of 

the United States. NHANES monitors 

the prevalence of chronic conditions 

and risk factors related to health such as 

asthma, osteoporosis, infectious 

diseases, diabetes, eye disease, high 

blood pressure, high cholesterol, 

obesity, smoking, drug and alcohol use, 

physical activity, environmental 

exposures, and diet. NHANES data are 

used to establish the norms for the 

general population against which health 

care providers can compare such patient 

characteristics as height, weight, and 

nutrient levels in the blood. Data from 

NHANES can be compared to those 

from previous surveys to monitor 

changes in the health of the U.S. 

population. NHANES will also establish 

a national probability sample of genetic 

material for future genetic research for 

susceptibility to disease. 

Users of NHANES data include 

Congress; the World Health 

Organization; Federal agencies such as 

NIH, EPA, and USDA; private groups 

such as the American Heart Association; 

schools of public health; private 

businesses; individual practitioners; and 

administrators. NHANES data are used 

to establish, monitor, and/or evaluate 

recommended dietary allowances, food 

fortification policies, environmental 

exposures, immunization guidelines 

and health education and disease 

prevention programs. The current 

submission requests approval for three 

years. 

There is no net cost to respondents 

other than their time. Respondents are 

reimbursed for any out-of-pocket costs 

such as transportation to and from the 

examination center. The total estimated 

annualized burden hours are 59,864. 


rwilkins on PROD1PC63 with NOTICES