Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 171 / Tuesday, September 4, 2018 / Notices 44881 

comments will become a matter of 

public record. 

Francis D. Chesley, Jr., 

Acting Deputy Director. 

[FR Doc. 2018–19027 Filed 8–31–18; 8:45 am] 

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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. 

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 ‘‘Nursing 

Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture 

Database.’’ 

This proposed information collection 

was previously published in the Federal 

Register on May 31, 2018, and allowed 

60 days for public comment. AHRQ 

received no substantive comments 

during this period. The purpose of this 

notice is to allow an additional 30 days 

for public comment. 

DATES: Comments on this notice must be 

received by October 4, 2018. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments should 

be submitted to: AHRQ’s OMB Desk 

Officer by fax at (202) 395–6974 

(attention: AHRQ’s desk officer) or by 

email at OIRA_submission@

omb.eop.gov (attention: AHRQ’s desk 

officer). 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Doris Lefkowitz, AHRQ Reports 

Clearance Officer, (301) 427–1477, or by 

email at doris.lefkowitz@AHRQ.hhs.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Proposed Project 

Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety 

Culture Database 

In accordance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501–3521, 

AHRQ invites the public the comment 

on this proposed information collection. 

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine called 

for health care organizations to develop 

a ‘‘culture of safety’’ such that their 

workforce and processes focus on 

improving the reliability and safety of 

care for patients (IOM, 1999; To Err is 

Human: Building a Safer Health 

System). To respond to the need for 

tools to assess patient safety culture in 

health care, AHRQ developed and pilot 

tested the Nursing Home Survey on 

Patient Safety Culture with OMB 

approval (OMB NO. 0935–0132; 

Approved July 5, 2007). 

The survey is designed to enable 

nursing homes to assess provider and 

staff perspectives about patient safety 

issues, medical error, and error 

reporting and includes 42 items that 

measure 12 composites of patient safety 

culture. AHRQ made the survey 

publicly available along with a Survey 

User’s Guide and other toolkit materials 

in November 2008 on the AHRQ 

website. 

The AHRQ Nursing Home SOPS 

Database consists of data from the 

AHRQ Nursing Home Survey on Patient 

Safety Culture. Nursing homes in the 

U.S. can voluntarily submit data from 

the survey to AHRQ through its 

contractor, Westat. The Nursing Home 

SOPS Database (OMB NO. 0935–0195, 

last approved on September 30, 2015) 

was developed by AHRQ in 2011 in 

response to requests from nursing 

homes interested in viewing their 

organizations’ patient safety culture 

survey results. Those organizations 

submitting data receive a feedback 

report, as well as a report on the 

aggregated de-identified findings of the 

other nursing homes submitting data. 

These reports are used to assist nursing 

home staff in their efforts to improve 

patient safety culture in their 

organizations. 

Rationale for the information 

collection. The Nursing Home SOPS 

and Nursing Home SOPS Database 

support AHRQ’s goals of promoting 

improvements in the quality and safety 

of health care in nursing home settings. 

The survey, toolkit materials, and 

database results are all made publicly 

available on AHRQ’s website. Technical 

assistance is provided by AHRQ through 

its contractor at no charge to nursing 

homes, to facilitate the use of these 

materials for nursing home patient 

safety and quality improvement. 

This database will: 

(1) Present results from nursing 

homes that voluntarily submit their 

data, 

(2) Provide data to nursing homes to 

facilitate internal assessment and 

learning in the patient safety 

improvement process, and 

(3) Provide supplemental information 

to help nursing homes identify their 

strengths and areas with potential for 

improvement in patient safety culture. 

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 health care 

services and with respect to quality 

measurement and improvement. 42 

U.S.C 299a(a)(1) and (2) 

Method of Collection 

To achieve the goal of this project the 

following activities and data collections 

will be implemented: 

(1) Eligibility and Registration Form— 

The nursing home (or parent 

organization) point-of-contact (POC) 

completes a number of data submission 

steps and forms, beginning with the 

completion of an online Eligibility and 

Registration Form. The purpose of this 

form is to collect basic demographic 

information about the nursing home and 

initiate the registration process. 

(2) Data Use Agreement—The purpose 

of the data use agreement, completed by 

the nursing home POC, is to state how 

data submitted by nursing homes will 

be used and provides privacy 

assurances. 

(3) Nursing Home Site Information 

Form—The purpose of the site 

information form, completed by the 

nursing home POC, is to collect 

background characteristics of the 

nursing home. This information will be 

used to analyze data collected with the 

Nursing Home SOPS survey. 

(4) Data File(s) Submission—POCs 

upload their data file(s) using the data 

file specifications, to ensure that users 

submit standardized and consistent data 

in the way variables are named, coded 

and formatted. The number of 

submissions to the database is likely to 

vary each year because nursing homes 

do not administer the survey and submit 

data every year. Data submission is 

typically handled by one POC who is 

either a corporate level health care 

manager for a Quality Improvement 

Organization (QIO), a survey vendor 

who contracts with a nursing home to 

collect their data, or a nursing home 

Director of Nursing or nurse manager. 

POCs submit data on behalf of 5 nursing 

homes, on average, because many 

nursing homes are part of a QIO or 

larger nursing home or health system 

that includes many nursing home sites, 

or the POC is a vendor that is submitting 

data for multiple nursing homes. 

Survey data from the AHRQ Nursing 

Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture 

are used to produce three types of 

products: 

(1) A Nursing Home SOPS User 

Database Report that is made publicly 

available on the AHRQ website; 


sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES
44882 Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 171 / Tuesday, September 4, 2018 / Notices 

(2) Individual Nursing Home Survey 

Feedback Reports are individualized 

reports produced for each nursing home 

that submits data to the database; and 

(3) Research data sets of individuallevel and nursing home-level deidentified data to enable researchers to 

conduct analyses. All data released in a 

data set are de-identified at the 

individual-level and the nursing homelevel. 

Nursing homes will be invited to 

voluntarily submit their Nursing Home 

SOPS survey data to the database. The 

data are then cleaned and aggregated 

and used to produce a Database Report 

in PDF format that displays averages, 

standard deviations, and percentile 

scores on the survey’s 42 items and 12 

patient safety culture composites, as 

well as displaying these results by 

nursing home characteristics (bed size, 

urbanicity, ownership, and region) and 

respondent characteristics (work area/ 

unit, staff position, interaction with 

residents, shift worked most often, and 

tenure in nursing home). 

Each nursing home that submits data 

receives an individualized survey 

feedback report that presents their 

results alongside the aggregate results 

from other participating nursing homes. 

Nursing homes use the Nursing Home 

SOPS Database Reports and Individual 

Nursing Home Survey Feedback Reports 

for a number of purposes, to: 

• Raise staff awareness about patient 

safety. 

• Elucidate and assess the current 

status of patient safety culture in their 

nursing home. 

• Identify strengths and areas for 

patient safety culture improvement. 

• Evaluate trends in patient safety 

culture change over time. 

• Evaluate the cultural impact of 

patient safety initiatives and 

interventions. 

Estimated Annual Respondent Burden 

Exhibit 1 shows the estimated 

annualized burden hours for the 

respondents’ time to participate in the 

database. An estimated 60 POCs, each 

representing an average of 5 individual 

nursing homes, will complete the 

database submission steps and forms. 

Each POC will submit the following: 

• Eligibility and registration form 

(completion is estimated to take about 3 

minutes). 

• Data Use Agreement (completion is 

estimated to take about 3 minutes). 

• Nursing Home Site Information 

Form (completion is estimated to take 

about 5 minutes). 

• Survey data submission will take an 

average of one hour. 

The total annual burden hours are 

estimated to be 91 hours. 

Exhibit 2 shows the estimated 

annualized cost burden based on the 

respondents’ time to submit their data. 

The cost burden is estimated to be 

$4,085 annually. 

EXHIBIT 1—ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED BURDEN HOURS

Form name 

Number of 

respondents/ 

POCs 

Number of 

responses per 

POC 

Hours per 

response 

Total burden 

hours 

Eligibility/Registration Form ............................................................................. 60 1 3/60 3 

Data Use Agreement ....................................................................................... 60 1 3/60 3 

Nursing Home Site Information Form .............................................................. 60 5 5/60 25 

Data Files Submission ..................................................................................... 60 1 1 60 

Total .......................................................................................................... NA NA NA 91 

EXHIBIT 2—ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COST BURDEN

Form name 

Number of 

respondents/ 

POCs 

Total burden 

hours 

Average 

hourly wage 

rate * 

Total cost 

burden 

Eligibility/Registration Forms ............................................................................ 60 3 $44.89 $135 

Data Use Agreement ....................................................................................... 60 3 44.89 135 

Nursing Home Site Information Form .............................................................. 60 25 44.89 1,122 

Data Files Submission ..................................................................................... 60 60 44.89 2,693 

Total .......................................................................................................... 240 91 NA 4,085 

* The wage rate in Exhibit 2 is based on May 2017 National Industry-Specific Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, Bureau of Labor 

Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor. Mean hourly wages for nursing home POCs are located at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics3_623000.htm. 

The hourly wage of $44.89 is the weighted mean of $45.81 (General and Operations Managers 11–1021; N = 40) and $43.04 (Medical and 

Health Services Managers 11–9111; N = 20). 

Request for Comments 

In accordance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act, 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. 

Francis D. Chesley, Jr., 

Acting Deputy Director. 

[FR Doc. 2018–19026 Filed 8–31–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4160–90–P 


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