Supporting Statement Part B -- PSO Privacy Protection Center Help Desk Survey 11-14-08 Final

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Part B

PSO Privacy Protection Center

Help Desk Survey

October 2008

Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Table of Contents

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods 3

1. Respondent universe and sampling methods 3

2. Information Collection Procedures 3

3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates 4

4. Tests of Procedures 4

5. Statistical Consultants 4

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. Respondent universe and sampling methods

AHRQ administers the provisions of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 dealing with PSO operations, and AHRQ has established a technical assistance service to support implementation of the Act. This technical assistance is delivered through the PSO Privacy Protection Center (PPC). The PPC provides a variety of services directly to PSOs. Two major PPC services include: 1) providing assistance with use of the Common Formats for patient safety event reporting, and 2) rendering patient safety event data non-identifiable, prior to submission to the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD).

To ensure timely and quality service is provided to customers, an incident response survey will be distributed to every tenth customer that has had an issue resolved with the PPC Help Desk. There will be an estimated 100 PSOs by the third year following the final rule. There will be an average of four staff members per PSO and each staff member will call the PPC Help Desk about five times a year. Therefore, an estimated 2000 calls a year to the Help Desk will result in about 200 persons per year selected to receive the survey.

The proposed PPC Help Desk Survey will be compromised of four questions that each respondent would answer to provide feedback on the services they received. The first three questions have answer values of Yes or No. The fourth question enlists comments or suggestions that would be provided in narrative form.

This customer satisfaction survey has been used in other initiatives, specifically the QualityNet Help Desk administered by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The QualityNet Help Desk receives a high volume of contacts and sends a customer satisfaction survey to every fiftieth resolved issue. The response rate for the QualityNet Help Desk is 35%. This will be the inception of a customer satisfaction survey for the PPC Help Desk, so there are no actual or previous response rates available.

2. Information Collection Procedures

The information collected is feedback in dichotomous and narrative form on the services provided by the PPC Help Desk. When a customer contacts the PPC Help Desk, an issue is logged in a software tracking system. Once the issue is resolved and closed, it is counted. Every tenth issue that is closed will be flagged and that customer will receive the survey via email. The survey is voluntary so the customer can answer the questions and reply with their feedback, or they can disregard the survey.

Results will be compiled on a monthly basis and summary information will be reported to AHRQ in the PPC Monthly Progress Report. The PPC Help Desk will use this information to improve the quality of services provided to PSOs and customers.

3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates

The PPC Help Desk survey will be voluntary. The following method may be used to increase response rates if needed:

The PPC Help Desk could acknowledge the receipt of the completed survey with a follow-up email that includes responses to their comments and/or suggestions.

4. Tests of Procedures

N/A

5. Statistical Consultants

N/A

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