67732 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 212 / Wednesday, November 2, 2011 / Notices 

2010. The Advisory Group has been 

established as a non-discretionary 

Federal advisory committee. 

The Advisory Group has been 

established to provide recommendations 

and advice to the National Prevention, 

Health Promotion and Public Health 

(the ‘‘Council’’). The Advisory Group 

shall provide assistance to the Council 

in carrying out its mission. 

The Advisory Group membership 

shall consist of not more than 25 nonFederal members to be appointed by the 

President. The membership shall 

include a diverse group of licensed 

health professionals, including 

integrative health practitioners who 

have expertise in (1) Worksite health 

promotion; (2) community services, 

including community health centers; (3) 

preventive medicine; (4) health 

coaching; (5) public health education; 

(6) geriatrics; and (7) rehabilitation 

medicine. There are currently 17 

members of the Advisory Group. This 

will be the fourth meeting of the 

Advisory Group. 

Public attendance at the Web meeting 

is limited. Members of the public who 

wish to attend the Web meeting must 

register by 12 p.m. EST November 17, 

2011. Individuals should notify the 

designated contact to register for public 

attendance at 

prevention.council@hhs.gov. 

Individuals who plan to attend the Web 

meeting and need special assistance 

and/or accommodations should notify 

the designated contact for the Advisory 

Group. The public will have 

opportunity to provide electronic 

written comments to the Advisory 

Group on November 21, 2011 during the 

Web meeting. Any member of the public 

who wishes to have printed material 

distributed to the Advisory Group for 

this scheduled Web meeting should 

submit material to the designated point 

of contact for the Advisory Group no 

later than 12 p.m. EST November 10, 

2011. 

Dated: October 24, 2011. 

Corinne M. Graffunder, 

Acting Designated Federal Officer, Office of 

the Surgeon General, Advisory Group on 

Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative 

and Public Health. 

[FR Doc. 2011–28422 Filed 11–1–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4163–18–P 

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 

Comparative Database.’’ In accordance 

with the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 

U.S.C. 3501–3521, AHRQ invites the 

public to comment on this proposed 

information collection. 

DATES: Comments on this notice must be 

received by January 3, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments should 

be submitted to: Doris Lefkowitz, 

Reports Clearance Officer, AHRQ, by 

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

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 

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

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Proposed Project 

Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety 

Culture Comparative Database 

The Agency for Healthcare Research 

and Quality (AHRQ) requests that the 

Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) approve, under the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995, AHRQ’s 

collection of information for the AHRQ 

Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety 

Culture (Nursing Home SOPS) 

Comparative Database. The Nursing 

Home SOPS Comparative Database 

consists of data from the AHRQ Nursing 

Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture. 

Nursing homes in the U.S. are asked to 

voluntarily submit data from the survey 

to AHRQ through its contractor, Westat. 

The Nursing Home SOPS Database is 

modeled after the Hospital SOPS 

Database [OMB No. 0935–0162, 

approved 05/04/2010] that was 

originally developed by AHRQ in 2006 

in response to requests from hospitals 

interested in knowing how their patient 

safety culture survey results compare to 

those of other hospitals. 

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 

nursing homes, 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 opinions about patient safety 

issues, medical error, and error 

reporting and includes 42 items that 

measure 12 dimensions of patient safety 

culture. AHRQ released the survey into 

the public domain along with a Survey 

User’s Guide and other toolkit materials 

in November 2008 on the AHRQ Web 

site (located at http://www.ahrq.gov/ 

qual/patientsafetyculture/ 

nhsurvindex.htm). Since its release, the 

survey has been voluntarily used by 

hundreds of nursing homes in the U.S. 

The Nursing Home SOPS and the 

Comparative Database are supported by 

AHRQ to meet its goals of promoting 

improvements in the quality and safety 

of health care in nursing home settings. 

The survey, toolkit materials, and 

preliminary comparative database 

results are all made available in the 

public domain along with technical 

assistance 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. 

The goal of this project is to create the 

Nursing Home SOPS Comparative 

Database. This database will (1) allow 

nursing homes to compare their patient 

safety culture survey results with those 

of other nursing homes; (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. 

De-identified data files will also be 

available to researchers conducting 

patient safety analysis. The database 

will include 42 items that measure 12 

areas, or composites of 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 

healthcare and on systems for the 


emcdonald on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 212 / Wednesday, November 2, 2011 / Notices 67733 

delivery of such care, including 

activities with respect to the quality, 

effectiveness, efficiency, 

appropriateness and value of healthcare 

services and with respect to quality 

measurement and improvement, and 

database development. 42 U.S.C. 

299a(a)(1) and (2), and (a)(8). 

Method of Collection 

To achieve the goal of this project the 

following activities and data collections 

will be implemented: 

(1) Nursing Home Eligibility and 

Registration Form—The purpose of this 

form is to determine the eligibility 

status and initiate the registration 

process for nursing homes seeking to 

voluntarily submit their NH SOPS data 

to the NH SOPS Comparative Database. 

The nursing home (or parent 

organization) point of contact (POC) will 

complete the form. The POC 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. Many 

nursing homes are part of a QIO or 

larger nursing home or health system 

that includes many nursing home sites. 

(2) Data Use Agreement—The purpose 

of this form is to obtain authorization 

from nursing homes to use their 

voluntarily submitted NH SOPS data for 

analysis and reporting according to the 

terms specified in the Data Use 

Agreement (DUA). The nursing home 

POC will complete the form. 

(3) Nursing Home Site Information 

Form — The purpose of this form is to 

obtain basic information about the 

characteristics of the nursing homes 

submitting their NH SOPS data to the 

NH SOPS Comparative Database (e.g., 

bed size, urbanicity, ownership, and 

geographic region). The nursing home 

POC will complete the form. 

(4) Data Submission—After the 

nursing home POC has completed the 

Nursing Home Eligibility and 

Registration Form, the Data Use 

Agreement and the Nursing Home Site 

Information Form, they will submit 

their data from the NH SOPS to the NH 

SOPS Comparative Database. 

Data from the AHRQ Nursing Home 

Survey on Patient Safety Culture are 

used to produce three types of products: 

(1) A Nursing Home SOPS Comparative 

Database Report that is produced 

periodically and made available in the 

public domain on the AHRQ Web site 

(see http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/ 

nhsurveyll/nhsurv111.pdf for the 2011 

report); (2) Nursing Home Survey 

Feedback Reports that are confidential, 

customized reports produced for each 

nursing home that submits data to the 

database; and (3) Research data sets of 

staff-level and nursing home-level deidentified data that enable researchers to 

conduct additional analyses. 

Estimated Annual Respondent Burden 

Exhibit 1 shows the estimated 

annualized burden hours for the nursing 

home to participate in the Nursing 

Home SOPS Comparative Database. The 

POC completes a number of data 

submission steps and forms, beginning 

with completion of the online Nursing 

Home SOPS Database Eligibility and 

Registration form and Data Use 

Agreement, which will be completed for 

85 nursing homes or groups of affiliated 

nursing homes annually. The Nursing 

Home Site Information Form will be 

completed for each individual nursing 

home; since each POC represents an 

average of 5 nursing homes a total of 

425 Information Forms will be 

completed annually and requires about 

5 minutes to complete. The POC will 

submit data for all of the nursing homes 

they represent which will take about 5 

and 1⁄2 hours, including the amount of 

time POCs typically spend deciding 

whether to participate in the database 

and preparing their materials and data 

set for submission to the database, and 

performing the submission. The total 

annual burden hours are estimated to be 

511. 

Nursing homes administer the AHRQ 

Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety 

Culture on a periodic basis. Hospitals 

submitting to the Hospital SOPS 

Comparative Database administer the 

survey every 16 months on average. 

Similarly, the number of nursing home 

submissions to the database is likely to 

vary each year because nursing homes 

do not administer the survey and submit 

data every year. The 85 respondents/ 

POCs shown in Exhibit 1 are based on 

an estimate of nursing homes submitting 

data in the coming years, with the 

following assumptions: 

• 30 POCs for QIOs submitting on 

behalf of 10 nursing homes each 

• 5 POCs for vendors outside of QIOs 

submitting on behalf of 10 nursing 

homes each 

• 50 independent nursing homes 

submitting on their own behalf 

ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED BURDEN HOURS

Form name 

Number of 

respondents/ 

POCs 

Number of 

responses per 

POC 

Hours per 

response 

Total burden 

hours 

Eligibility/Registration Forms ........................................................... 85 1 3/60 4 

Data Use Agreement ....................................................................... 85 1 3/60 4 

Nursing Home Site Information Form .............................................. 85 5 5/60 35 

Data Submission .............................................................................. 85 1 5.5 468 

Total .......................................................................................... 340 NA NA 511 

Exhibit 2 shows the estimated 

annualized cost burden based on the 

respondents’ time to submit their data. 

The cost burden is estimated to be 

$21,152 annually. 

EXHIBIT 2—ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COSY BURDEN

Form name 

Number of 

respondents/ 

POCs 

Total burden 

hours 

Average hourly 

wage rate* Total cost burden 

Eligibility/Registration Forms ........................................................... 85 4 $41.39 $166 

Data Use Agreement ....................................................................... 85 4 41.39 166 

Nursing Home Site Information Form .............................................. 85 35 41.39 1,449 


emcdonald on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
67734 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 212 / Wednesday, November 2, 2011 / Notices 

EXHIBIT 2—ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COSY BURDEN—Continued 

Form name 

Number of 

respondents/ 

POCs 

Total burden 

hours 

Average hourly 

wage rate* Total cost burden 

Data Submission .............................................................................. 85 468 41.39 19,371 

Total .......................................................................................... 340 511 NA 21,152 

* The wage rate in Exhibit 2 is based on May 2009 National Industry-Specific Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Bureau o Labor 

Statistics, U.S. Dept of Labor. Mean hourly wages for nursing home POCs are located at http://www.bls.gov/oes/2009/may/naics4 623100.htm 

and http://www.bls.gov/oes/2009/may/naics2 62.htm. The hourly wage of $41.39 is the weighted mean of $41.94 (General and Operations Managers; N = 25), $37.29 (Medical and Health Services Managers; N = 25), $42.89 (General and Operations Managers; N = 30) and $50.00 (Computer and Information Systems Managers; N = 5). 

Estimated Annual Costs to the Federal 

Government 

The estimated annualized cost to the 

government for developing, 

maintaining, and managing the database 

and analyzing the data and producing 

reports is shown below. The cost is 

estimated to be $310,000 annually. The 

total cost over the three years of this 

information collection request is 

$930,000. 

EXHIBIT 3—ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COST

Cost component Total cost Annualized cost 

Project Development ............................................................................................................................... $59,715 $19,905 

Data Collection Activities ......................................................................................................................... 82,107 27,369 

Data Processing and Analysis ................................................................................................................. 111,963 37,321 

Publication of Results .............................................................................................................................. 111,966 37,322 

Project Management ................................................................................................................................ 7,464 2,488 

Overhead ................................................................................................................................................. 556,785 185,595 

Total .................................................................................................................................................. 930,000 310,000 

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 healthcare 

research and healthcare 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: October 25, 2011. 

Carolyn M. Clancy, 

Director. 

[FR Doc. 2011–28403 Filed 11–1–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4160–90–M 

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: ‘‘MEPS 

Cancer Self Administrated 

Questionnaire.’’ In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 

3501–3521, AHRQ invites the public to 

comment on this proposed information 

collection. 

DATES: Comments on this notice must be 

received by January 3, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments should 

be submitted to: Doris Lefkowitz, 

Reports Clearance Officer, AHRQ, by 

email at dorislefkowitz@AHRQ.hhs.gov. 

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 

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

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Proposed Project 

MEPS Cancer SAQ 

The Medical Expenditure Panel 

Survey (MEPS) is a nationally 

representative survey of the civilian 

noninstitutionalized population of all 

ages in the United States that collects 

comprehensive data on health care and 

health care expenditures from all payors 

(including private payors, Medicaid, the 

VA, and out-of-pocket) over a two-year 

period. The MEPS has been conducted 

annually since 1996. The OMB Control 

Number for the MEPS is 0935–0118, 

with an expiration date of January 31st, 

2013. All of the supporting documents 

for the MEPS can be downloaded from 

http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/ 

PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=200910- 

0935-001. 

The purpose of this request is to 

integrate the new self-administered 

questionnaire (SAQ) entitled, 

‘‘Experiences with Cancer,’’ into the 

MEPS. Once the SAQ is integrated it 

will be completed by MEPS participants 

identified as ever having cancer. The 


emcdonald on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES