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 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 de-identified 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

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.

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.

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.