2020-17787. Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission to OMB for Review and Approval; Public Comment Request; Information Collection Request Title: Office for the Advancement of Telehealth Outcome Measures, OMB No. 0915-0311-Revision

AGENCY:

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Department of Health and Human Services.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, HRSA has submitted an Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. Comments submitted during the first public review of this ICR will be provided to OMB. OMB will accept further comments from the public during the review and approval period. OMB may act on HRSA's ICR only after the 30 day comment period for this notice has closed.

DATES:

Comments on this ICR should be received within 30 days of this notice no later than September 14, 2020.

ADDRESSES:

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to www.reginfo.gov/​public/​do/​PRAMain. Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request a copy of the clearance requests submitted to OMB for review, email the HRSA Information Collection Clearance Officer at [e-mail] or call [phone].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Information Collection Request Title: HRSA Telehealth Outcome Measures OMB No. 0915-0311—Revision.

Abstract: In order to help carry out its mission, the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) created a set of performance measures that grantees can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their services programs and monitor their progress through the use of performance reporting data.

A 60-day Notice was published in the Federal Register on March 26, 2020, vol. 85, No. 59; p. 17089. There were no comments.

Need and Proposed Use of the Information: As required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, all federal agencies must develop strategic plans describing their overall goal and objectives. The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, OAT, has worked with its grantees to develop performance measures to be used to evaluate and monitor the progress of the grantees. Grantee goals are to: Improve access to needed services; reduce rural practitioner isolation; improve health system productivity and efficiency; and improve patient outcomes. In each of these categories, specific indicators were designed to be reported through a performance monitoring website. New measures are being added to the Telehealth Network Grant Program to capture awardee-level and aggregate data that illustrate the impact and scope of federal funding along with assessing these efforts. The measures speak to OAT's progress toward meeting the goals, specifically telehealth services delivered through Emergency Departments.

Likely Respondents: Telehealth Network Grantees.

Burden Statement: Burden in this context means the time expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide the information requested. This includes the time needed to review instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to a collection of information; to search data sources; to complete and review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise disclose the information. The total annual burden hours estimated for this Information Collection Request are summarized in the table below.

Total Estimated Annualized Burden—Hours

Form name	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Total responses	Average burden per response (in hours)	Total burden hours
Performance Improvement Measurement System (PIMS)	29	1	29	7	203
Total	29		29		203

Maria G. Button,

Director, Executive Secretariat.