Request for Approval

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0920-0974)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Customer Service Feedback Survey of 2016 NSSP Annual Grantee Meeting

PURPOSE:

In order to work continuously to ensure that our programs are effective and meet our customers’ needs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seeks to obtain Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval of a generic clearance to collect qualitative or routine customer feedback on our service delivery for the 2016 National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) Annual Grantee Meeting hosted from May 16-18, 2016.

The mission of the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) is to promote the use of high quality syndromic surveillance data for improved nationwide all-hazard situational awareness for public health decision-making and enhanced responses to hazardous events, and outbreaks. In addition, this program provides support to state and local health authorities to advance the Meaningful Use of syndromic surveillance data from electronic health records (EHR).

To assist state and local public health authorities to implement syndromic surveillance to enhance situation awareness and detect and characterize disease outbreaks or other hazardous events or conditions of public health concern in order to respond quickly to local threats, 31 jurisdictions were funded under the competitive Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), “The National Syndromic Surveillance Program: Enhancing Syndromic Surveillance Capacity and Practice,” (CDC-RFA-OE15-1502). Activities supported to enhance syndromic surveillance capacity and practice under this cooperative agreement include: (1) improving the overall representativeness of syndromic surveillance data by recruiting hospital or other sources of emergency department/urgent care or inpatient data that are representative of the jurisdiction’s population; (2) improving the quality, timeliness, utility, and sharing of these data; and (3) increasing collaboration among state and local jurisdictions through a National Syndromic Surveillance Community of Practice.

As a requirement of this cooperative agreement, all 31 funded jurisdictions must attend an annual grantee meeting. The purpose of the grantee meeting is to provide grantees with programmatic updates and facilitate networking to increase syndromic surveillance capacity. This meeting provides an opportunity for funded jurisdictions to participate in scientific exchange around current syndromic surveillance issues and to highlight progress towards a national syndromic surveillance program at CDC. The NSSP program intends to use the results of these data to improve the logistics, communication, and quality of the NSSP Annual Grantee meeting sessions when planning future meetings.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Respondents to the Customer Service Feedback Survey (Attachment 1, Survey Word and Attachment 2, Survey Screenshots) will be 2016 NSSP Annual Grantee Meeting participants. Meeting participants will be local and state government employees. No personally identifiable information (PII) will be collected; however, should any respondents provide PII, it will not be retained.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

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

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

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

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: Sebastian Romano, MPH

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

Personally Identifiable Information:

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

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

BURDEN HOURS

The feedback survey will be web-based and include 30 questions. Respondents will take approximately 10 minutes to complete the survey through the web-based EpiInfo tool (for more information on Epi Info please visit http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/index.html). The estimate for burden hours is based on results from a pilot version of this survey that volunteer CDC employee participants completed. The average time it took for volunteers to complete the survey, including reading the instructions, was approximately 10 minutes.

Approximately 60 people registered for the 2016 NSSP Annual Grantee’s Meeting and we are seeking approval to collect feedback from all of them. Given 60 respondents with a response time of 10 minutes each, the total response burden will be 10 hours. There will be no cost to the respondents other than their time to respond to the survey. Throughout the grantee meeting, the participants will be reminded to complete the 2016 survey to heighten their awareness of the importance to provide feedback and increase the response rate.

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Individuals	60	10/60	10 hours
Totals			10 hours

FEDERAL COST:

There ae no equipment or overhead costs. The average annualized cost to the Federal Government to collect this information is $1,680.00. This estimate is based on the time required for one senior CDC scientist (GS-13/14) to supervise and one CDC scientist (GS-12 equivalent) to design the survey, develop the web-based survey, implement the survey, analyze the data, and develop recommendations for improving the 2017 NSSP Annual Grantee’s Meeting, based on survey results.

Staff or Contractor	Hours	Average Hourly Rate	Cost
FTE staff (GS-12): survey design, create web-based survey, implementation, analysis, and reporting (GS-9 equivalent)	40	$35.58	$1423.20
FTE supervisor (GS-13/14): Provide oversight to the contractor and guidance on instrument development and data analysis. Provide feedback on the final report.	4	64.20	$256.80
Totals			$1,680.00

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

Administration of the Instrument

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

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

[ ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

The 2016 NSSP Annual Grantee’s Meeting Feedback Survey will be administered as a web-based survey. At the conclusion of the conference, an invitation email (Attachment 3, Invitation Email) with a link to the survey will be sent to all 2016 NSSP Annual Grantee’s Meeting registrants who provided an email address. Respondents will be given 2.5 weeks to respond to the survey. A reminder email (Attachment 4, Reminder Email) will be sent twice: one 7 days prior to the close of the survey and one on the day that the survey closes. Respondents have the option of completing the survey over several sittings if they so choose. The survey does not track individual responses.

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

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