cover memo 31710

TO: Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Through: Reports Clearance Officer, DHHS

Project Clearance Chief, NIH

Project Clearance Liaison, NCCAM

FROM: Alyssa Cotler

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)

SUBJECT: National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Communications Program Planning and Evaluation

The staff of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Office of Communications plans to conduct a formative research survey under OMB Control Number 0925-0530, expiration date October 31, 2010. The survey will assess the information needs of health care providers relative to complementary and alternative medicine. Information on the type of online tools, resources, content, and format useful to health care providers will be used to alter content of the health professional portal page of the NCCAM public Web site (http://nccam.nih.gov) to better meet the needs of this audience.

Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary

The NCCAM health professional portal page is a fundamental tool for providing complementary and alternative medical information to health care providers. In 2006, NCCAM conducted telephone focus groups with physicians, results of which found that physicians did not feel they had sufficient knowledge about complementary and alternative medicine to guide their patients and expressed interest in having more information available to them. A survey distributed to attendees of physician-focused meetings where NCCAM will be exhibiting would provide the necessary feedback to create the types of tools and content for the health professional portal page that is needed by this audience. The responses would allow NCCAM to gauge what topics and tools the health care providers are most interested in, construct optimal formats, and determine preferred delivery methods.

Purpose and Use of the Information Collection

This formative survey will assess the content, format, and delivery of information on the health professional portal page of the NCCAM public Web site. Using the respondents’ feedback, NCCAM will add materials, tools, and resources to the site to ensure customer satisfaction and ease of use.

We will recruit up to 100 respondents at the American Pain Society 29^th Annual Scientific Meeting, 2010 American Geriatric Society Annual Scientific Meeting, and the 2010 National Medical Association Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly. The survey will be administered as a self-administered questionnaire at the NCCAM exhibit booth. No technology will be used to complete the survey. Completion will be voluntary with no payment and individual responses will be kept confidential. Findings will be used by NCCAM for program planning purposes and published or otherwise shared externally.

Estimates of Burden Hours and Costs

Type of Respondents	Number of Respondents	Frequency of Response	Average Time per Response	Annual Hour Burden	Respondent Cost
Health Care Providers	300	1	0.05	15 Hours	$0