PACT DL Focus Group Generic Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2900-0770)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

The Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACT) Patient and Caregiver Focus Groups

PURPOSE:

The Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System (VAAAHS) is redesigning its primary care clinics to use a team approach to delivering healthcare; this approach is called Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACT).  The goal of PACT is to provide accessible, coordinated, comprehensive, patient-centered care, and to allow patients to have a more active role in their health care. The proposed focus groups will help inform the VAAAHS of patients’ and their informal caregivers’ experiences with the new primary care teams and will help the clinics improve patient care. We plan to repeat these focus groups one year later to further aid in the improvement of patient care. These focus groups are part of a larger effort to obtain feedback on the PACT approach to care (separate full submission requests for OMB approval are being submitted for interviews and a survey).

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The focus group participants will be adult patients of the VAAAHS Primary Care Clinics and their family/friends who serve as their informal caregivers.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] 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: Eve Kerr, MD, MPH

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

Personally Identifiable Information:

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

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

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

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

[] Yes [ ] No

Focus group participants will receive a $20 gift card for the time they spend in travel and participation.

BURDEN HOURS

We plan to conduct 10 focus groups per year of 10 individuals each for 2 years.

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden/ Year
Individuals & Households	100	90 minutes	150 hrs
Totals			150 per year

Burden hours for the two year data collection total 300 hours.

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is: $20,000.00

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

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 for patients [] No for caregivers

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?

Patients of the VAAAHS Primary Care clinics will be identified through administrative data; there are 19,000 patients in this universe of potential respondents. The respondent selection will be a convenience sample as no statistical methods will be employed. Criteria may include one or more of the following: recent primary care visit, recent discharge from an in-patient stay at the VA, close proximity to the VA, and participation in a health education program.

Informal caregivers are family/friends that help the patient manage their health and will be identified through patients who participate in the focus groups. The respondent selection will be a convenience sample as no statistical methods will be employed. There will be two methods for caregiver identification. The first method allows for participants in the focus groups to identify a caregiver and provide his/her contact information with the understanding that a staff member of the VAAAHS will contact them through a mailed letter and follow-up telephone call. The second method will be to provide patient focus group participants with a recruitment flyer to give to a caregiver; accepting a caregiver recruitment letter will be completely voluntary. Staff will mail recruitment letters to caregivers identified by the patients and follow-up via telephone calls approximately a week later. Caregivers that received a flyer from a patient may contact the VA through the provided toll-free phone number.

Administration of the Instrument

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

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

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

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

There are 2 Focus Group Guides

1) The Patient Focus Group Guide is for patients with a recent visit to or encounter with the primary care clinic.

2) The Caregiver Focus Group Guide is for these patients’ caregivers.

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