[Federal Register: December 3, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 232)]
[Notices]
[Page 71972-71973]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr03de02-96]
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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 the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) to allow the proposed information
collection project: ``Pilot Data for the Development of a Hospital
Patient Safety Culture Survey''. In accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)),
AHRQ invites the public to comment on this proposed information
collection.
The proposed information collection was previously published in the
Federal Register on September 23, 2002, and allowed 60 days for public
comment. No public comments were received. The purpose of this notice
is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment.
DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by January 2, 2003.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to: OMB Desk Officer at
the following address: Allison Eydt, Human Resources and Housing
Branch, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB: New
Executive Office Building, Room 10235; Washington, DC 20503.
Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized
and included in the request for OMB approval of the proposed
information collection. All comments will become a matter of public
record.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cynthia D. McMichael, AHRQ Reports
Clearance Officer, (301) 594-3132.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Proposed Project
``Pilot Data for the Development of a Hospital Patient Safety Culture
Survey''
The project is being conducted in partial response to an AHRQ task
order entitled ``Patient Safety Measures'' (issued under Contract 290-
96-0004). With AHRQ's Director chairing the Quality Interagency
Coordination Task Force (QuIC), and AHRQ coordinated the Federal
response to the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 1999 report on medical
errors. The response outlined specific initiatives the QuIC agencies
would take.
This project addresses the need for a measurement tool to assess
patient safety culture within health care institutions.
The project is to develop a hospital patient safety culture survey,
conduct cognitive pretesting, collect pilot data using the survey,
analyze the pilot data to determine the psychometric properties of the
survey (internal consistently, reliability, response variability,
etc.), and then, to prepare survey administration procedures
accordingly. The overall goal of this study is to provide AHRQ with a
reliable employee survey instrument to assess a hospital's patient
safety culture. The survey instrument will be made publicly available
to enable hospitals throughout the nation to evaluate aspects of their
organizational culture that impact medical errors, error reporting, and
patient safety.
The hospital patient safety culture survey to be pilot tested for
this project is an employee survey that places an emphasis on medical
error reporting. The survey also includes scales that measure other
aspects of organizational culture that impact patient safety, such as:
organizational learning, overall perceptions of safety, compliance with
procedures, attitudes and frequency of error reporting, nonpunitive
response to error, reasons errors occur, and employee teamwork. Through
the proposed project, a reliable hospital
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patient safety culture survey will be developed and then made available
to the public, to reduce the burden to hospitals in developing their
own instruments, to reduce the proliferation and use of untested
instruments, and to foster benchmarking across hospitals.
Method of Collection
The purpose of this pilot data collection is to gather enough
survey responses to evaluate the internal consistency, reliability,
response variability, and other psychometric properties of a newly
developed survey, not to produce national estimates. Therefore, a
purposive sample (hand-chosen, non-statistical sample) of 12 hospitals
will suffice to participate in the study.
Hospitals will be selected based on two factors: bed size and
teaching vs. non-teaching status (two large/teaching, two medium/
teaching, two small/teaching, two large/non-teaching, two medium/non-
teaching, two small/non-teaching).
Surveys will be distributed to 100 employees at each of the 12
sites (a total of 1,200 employees). A contact person at each hospital
will be asked to select 100 employees using a systematic random sample
of employees. The contact person at each hospital will distribute the
paper surveys to the 100 selected employees at each site. For purposes
of individual confidentiality, no individuals identifiers will be used,
so it will not be possible to track individual responses. Respondents
will be instructed to mail their completed surveys directly to the
research organization conducting the study using a postage-paid return
envelope that will be provided. The hospitals will at no time have
access to individual responses.
The survey will be distributed to a total of 1,200 hospital
employees (100 individuals at each of 12 hospitals), with a target
response rate of 75%, or 900 returned surveys. Standard techniques like
using a prenotification letter, a cover letter of support from the
hospital, a follow-up postcard, and distribution of a second survey
will be used to achieve the target response rate. Respondents should
take approximately 20 minutes to complete the survey. Therefore, we
estimate that the respondent burden for completing the survey will be
300 hours (900 completes multiplied by 20 minutes per completed
survey).
Estimated Annual Respondent Burden
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Estimated time
Data collection effort Number of per respondent Estimated total
respondents (in minutes) burden hours
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Safety Culture Survey Pilot.................................. 900 20 300
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Respondents will not be asked to maintain any records. No
additional equipment purchases will be made to support data collection
processes or record keeping. Respondents will incur no monetary cost in
completing the survey.
Estimated Annual Costs to the Federal Government
The total cost to the government for conducting this survey
development project is approximately $227,000 which includes the cost
of survey development, pretesting, data collection, analysis,
preparation of survey administration procedures, and preparation of a
final report. The estimated cost of the data collection component is
$50,000, which includes labor costs, fringe expenses, administrative
expenses, and costs associated with copying, postage, and telephone
expenses.
Request for Comments
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction legislation cited in the
summary section above, comments on the AHRQ information collection
proposal are requested with regard to any of the following:
(a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for
the proper performance of functions of the Agency, including whether
the information will have practical utility;
(b) The accuracy of the Agency's estimate of the burden (including
hours and costs) of the proposed collection 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 on
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 request for OMB approval of the proposed
information collection. All comments will become a matter of public
record.
Dated: November 22, 2002.
Carolyn M. Clancy,
Acting Director.
[FR Doc. 02-30631 Filed 12-2-02; 8:45 am]
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