The demand for Advanced Practice Registered Nurse(APRN)-provided care has increased in recent years because of the shortage of primary-care physicians and the rise in the demand for primary-care services and expected to continue increasing as more Americans acquire access to health care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act. The Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration aims to increase the supply of APRNs in the U.S. health care delivery system by providing Medicare payments to five selected hospitals for the reasonable cost of providing clinical training to APRN students. This demonstration also involves the creation of partnerships between hospitals, schools of nursing (SONs), and community-based care settings (CCSs). The program evaluation will determine:
1. The growth in the number of APRNs with respect to a specific base year as a result of the demonstration.
2. The growth for each of the following specialties: clinical nurse specialist, nurse practitioner, certified nurse anesthetist, certified nurse-midwife.
3. The costs to the Medicare program as result of the demonstration.
The former will analyze the implementation of the demonstration and allow for course corrections during the demonstration period. The latter evaluation will measure the change in key data elements from baseline. Data pertaining to all stages of the demonstration, including historical, baseline, transition, implementation and post-implementation stages are needed. The purpose of this data collection is, thus, to obtain quantitative and qualitative data from the hospitals, SONS, CCSs of five demonstration sites. The qualitative data will be obtained through key stakeholder interviews, small discussion groups and focus groups, and telephone interviews with administrators, preceptors, and APRN students. Quantitative data elements include characteristics of:
o APRN applicants, current students, and alumni
o Preceptors
o Nursing faculty
o Partner hospitals
o SONs
o CCSs
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
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