cover memo HCP focus group eval 080210

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 focus group evaluation under OMB Control Number 0925-0530, expiration date October 31, 2010. The online focus groups will assess the information needs of health care providers relative to complementary and alternative medicine and help improve NCCAM’s outreach to health care professionals via the Web site, specifically the health care provider portal. 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. Online focus groups would provide the necessary feedback to improve the content, structure, and functionality of the health professional portal page based on the needs of this audience. The responses from the focus group evaluation would allow NCCAM to determine if any key sources of information or other resources are missing from the portal, ascertain if the content on the portal is presented in the appropriate format, and identify areas where users encounter difficulties locating information and resources.

Purpose and Use of the Information Collection

This online focus group evaluation will improve NCCAM’s outreach to physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants via the Web site, specifically the health professional portal page. Using the respondents’ feedback, NCCAM will make improvements to the portal by adding content, tools, and resources; making changes to the structure and functionality; and revising the layout and navigation.

We will conduct four online focus groups for two target audiences (physicians and nurse practitioners/physician assistants). Participants will be instructed to review the NCCAM health professional portal page prior to attending the online focus group. Later, they will log in to a private online chat room and in a 90-minute session will provide feedback as an experienced moderator leads them through a series of questions about the portal. No special software or downloads will be needed to participate in the focus group. Completion will be voluntary, and selected participants will be sent compensation within 6-8 weeks of completion of the online focus group.

Because of the demanding nature of schedules of health care providers, a sufficient monetary incentive is necessary to enable us to recruit successfully. Participants will be asked to complete a number of online tasks prior to the focus group and then engage for 90 minutes in the focus group. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 the estimated median hourly wage was $89 for physicians and $163 for specialists. Taking into account these estimates as well as the in-depth tasks and discussion activities involved in this evaluation, it is reasonable for participating physicians to receive $50, and other health care professionals to receive $35 for their time. Individual responses will be kept private under the Privacy Act. 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	36	1	1.5	54 Hours	$0