OMB Submission Form -- Customer Satisfaction with AHRQ's Health IT Literacy Guide 091311

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0935-0179)

T ITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Customer Satisfaction with Health IT Literacy Guide

PURPOSE:

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a lead Federal agency in developing and disseminating evidence and evidence-based tools on how health information technology (IT) can improve health care quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness.

In support of its health IT initiative, AHRQ developed the National Resource Center (NRC) for Health IT Web site. This site contains a range of information and evidence-based tools that support the health IT initiative’s work and aims.

With this project, AHRQ is collecting feedback regarding the tools available on the Web site. The purpose of this project is to gather qualitative feedback for one of the tools available on the NRC site: the Health IT Literacy Guide. Published in 2007, the guide is intended to promote the use of “accessible software design” principles and design for limited literacy adults, featuring principles of accessible and usable health IT, a listing of Web resources addressing many related topics, and a “checklist” to help assess whether a system adheres to important accessibility and limited-literacy design principles.

The goals of the project are to: (1) determine how useful and easy to use the Health IT Literacy Guide is for its intended audiences and (2) to provide specific recommendations for revising it, including how the recommended changes should be implemented, how the Guide should be maintained, and whether the tool should be kept at all on the site.

To achieve these goals AHRQ will conduct seven (7) focus group discussions of 8 to 10 participants (see Attachment A for the Focus Group Moderator Guide). Segmentation of the groups is presented in Table 1, below. Participants will be assigned to groups based on segment, geographic location, and schedule.

Table 1: Proposed Focus Group Segmentation (n=7)

Segment	Number of Groups	Proposed Data Collection Method*
Developers	4	3 in-person, 1 online using WebEx or similar technology
Purchasers	3	2 in-person, 1 online using WebEx or similar technology

* Proposed data collection methods may change given logistics and scheduling.

Specifically, the focus groups will assist in answering the following:

1. To what extent does the Health IT Literacy Guide aid developers in designing health IT applications that are accessible to adults with different levels of health literacy? How satisfied with the Guide are developers of health IT?

2. To what extent does the Health IT Literacy Guide aid purchasers in selecting health IT applications that are accessible to adults with different levels of health literacy? How satisfied with the Guide are purchasers of health IT?

3. In what ways can the Health IT Literacy Guide be improved or updated to be more timely, relevant and useful to developers in designing health IT applications that are accessible to adults with different levels of health literacy?

4. In what ways can the Health IT Literacy Guide be improved or updated to be more timely, relevant and useful to purchasers in selecting health IT applications that are accessible to adults with different levels of health literacy?

Contact materials for recruiting participants and scheduling interviews are included as Attachment B and Attachment C, and the participant consent from is also included as Attachment D.

This study is being conducted by AHRQ through its contractors, RTI International and CommunicateHealth, 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 health care technologies. 42 U.S.C. 299a(a)(5).

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Respondents will be developers and purchasers of health IT and are defined as:

1. Developers are those working for health IT vendors or organizations that create health IT applications used by consumers. They may also include researchers, many of whom are also developing or evaluating health IT applications aimed at health care consumers.

2. Purchasers are those working for organizations involved in the selection of health IT applications for use by consumers, often in coordination with health care providers (e.g., hospitals, physician practices, and community health centers). They also include health plans, pharmaceutical companies, consulting firms, foundations, other nonprofit organizations, and government purchasers at the Federal, State, and local levels.

The focus groups will target developers and purchasers who are involved in the design or selection of highly interactive consumer health IT applications, intended primarily for use by patients or consumers, which incorporate both patient interaction and patient-specific feedback. We will not target developers or purchasers of systems that offer minimal tailoring or minimal feedback to the patient or consumer.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check all that apply)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [X] Other: Screening instrument (questionnaire) for participation in Focus Group

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Doris Lefkowitz

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [X] Yes [ ] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [X] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants?

[X] Yes [ ] No

AHRQ will offer eligible persons $150 as an incentive to participate in the focus groups. This is currently the standard payment to health IT professionals for participation in focus groups lasting up to 90 minutes. In order to take part in these activities, participants will have to find transportation to a centrally-located facility or make themselves available online at a particular time. Although it may be possible to conduct this study while providing a smaller incentive amount to participants, experience suggests that doing so would increase the resources needed for recruiting participants with the desired background, thus increasing the overall project cost to the government.

BURDEN HOURS

Screening Instrument

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden Hours
Private Sector	126	5 minutes	11
Totals	126	5 minutes	11

Focus Groups

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden Hours
Private Sector	63	90 minutes	95
Totals	63	90 minutes	95

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $170,000

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [] Yes [X] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

An initial list of organizations from which to recruit respondents (developers and purchasers of consumer health IT), will be developed during earlier tasks in the project. These tasks include an environmental scan that will identify best practices pertaining to developing accessible health IT products and a series of interviews with experts in the areas of health literacy, consumer health IT, usability, and human-computer interaction (HCI). Types of organizations already identified from which potential respondents will be recruited include: Federal health IT purchasers, health plans, universities, and professional organizations representing the target audiences (e.g., Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems [AMDIS]; Health Information Management Systems Society [HIMSS], American Medical Informatics Association [AMIA], American Association of Family Physicians [AAFP]) .

Organizations will be asked to distribute information about the focus group opportunities by email (see Attachment B) through their listservs and/or membership lists. The information will include a toll-free number for interested individuals to call that will be staffed by study staff who will then screen participants for suitability using a screening instrument (See Attachment C) and schedule them to participate if eligible.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [ ] No

List of Attachments

Attachment A – Focus Group Moderator Guide

Attachment B – Text for Initial Participant Email

Attachment C – Screening Instrument for Focus Groups

Attachment D – Focus Group Consent Form

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