[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 185 (Monday, September 25, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55796-55797]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 06-8183]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Request for Measures of Consumers' Home Health Care Experiences
AGENCY: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), DHHS.
ACTION: Notice of request for measures.
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SUMMARY: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is
soliciting the submission of instruments or items that measure
perceptions of patients and their informal caregivers regarding the
quality of home health care these patients received from home health
providers, health plans, other health care providers, stakeholders,
vendors, researchers who include home health care as part of their
research, and other interested parties. This initiative is in response
to the need to develop a new CAHPs[reg] home health care survey. The
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is interested in incorporating
this survey as part of its Home Health Quality Initiative which is
intended to empower consumers with quality of care information to make
more informed decisions about their health care while also encouraging
Medicare certified home health agencies to improve the quality of care
they deliver to all patients regardless of payer source. The survey is
likely to assess the quality of care and services provided by nurses,
therapists, home heath aides, medical social workers, and home health
agency administrative staff.
Based on the agency's prior consumer assessment of health care
work, there are several functional areas that this instrument could
assess such as: Communication; courtesy and respect; information
provided and shared decision making; coordination/integration of care;
time related issues (e.g., arrived and departed according to schedule,
amount of time spent, visit frequency); competence: influence/control
over care giver activities; unmet need issues, and customer service.
DATES: Please submit instruments and supporting information on or
before October 25, 2006. AHRQ will not respond individually to
submitters, but will consider all submitted instruments and publicly
report the results of the review of the submissions in aggregate.
ADDRESSES: Submissions should include a brief cover letter, a copy of
the instrument or items for consideration and supporting information as
specified under the Submission Criteria below. Submissions may be in
the form of a letter or e-mail, preferably with an electronic file as
an E-mail attachment. Responses to this request should be submitted to:
Charles Darby, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety,
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 540 Gaither Road,
Rockville, MD 20850, Phone: (301) 427-1324, Fax: (301) 427-1341, E-
mail: [email protected].
To facilitate handling of submissions, please include full
information about the instrument developer and/or a designated contact:
(a) Name, (b) title, (c) organization, (d) mailing address, (e)
telephone number, (f) fax number, and (g) e-mail address. Also, please
submit a copy of the instrument or items for consideration, and
evidence that meets the criteria below. It is requested that citation
of a peer-reviewed journal article pertaining to the instrument to
include the title of the article, author(s), publication year, journal
name, volume, issue, and page numbers where article appears, be
included, but is not required. Submitters must also provide a statement
of willingness to grant to AHRQ the right to use and authorize others
to use submitted measures and their documentation as part of a
CAHPS[reg]-trademarked instrument. This final CAHPS[reg] instrument for
collecting patient perspectives on the quality of home health care and
services will be made publicly available, free of charge. Electronic
submissions are encouraged.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Charles Darby, at the address above.
Submission Criteria
Instruments submitted should focus on home health care or closely
related care areas (e.g., home care; personal assistant services/
community based care) and address areas of interest such as:
communication, information provided and shared decision making,
courtesy and respect, coordination/integration, time related issues
(e.g., arrival an departed according to schedule, amount of time spent:
visit frequency competence) influence/control over care giver
activities, unmet need issues, and customer service.
Measures submitted must meet these criteria to be considered:
capture the patients' experience of home health care workers and agency
administrative and demonstrate a high degree of reliability and
validity. Submitters' willingness to grant to AHRQ the right to use and
authorize others to the instrument or item means that the CAHPS[reg]
trademark will be applied to a new instrument combining the best
features of all the submissions as well as any ideas that may develop
from reviewing them. This will ensure free access to the
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instrument, and free access to the instrument's supportive/
administrative information. AHRQ, in collaboration with CAHPS grantees,
and in consultation with CMS, will evaluate all submitted instruments
or items. As the CAHPS instrument is constructed, one or more
instruments may be selected, either in whole or in part, or items may
be modified prior to testing them.
Submitters will relinquish ownership of any items that appear in
the final instrument. However, item ownership will be protected during
testing of the survey.
The final instruments(s) will bear the CAHPS[supreg] trademark and
they will be made freely available for use by all interested parties.
As a matter of quality control, there will be warnings that the
CAHPS[supreg] identification may not be used if any changes are made to
the instrument or the final measure set or the methodology or
instructions, without review and permission of the agency.
Each submission should include the following information: the name
of the instrument, domains included, language(s) the instrument is
available in, evidence of cultural/cross group comparability, if any,
instrument reliability (internal consistency, test-retest, etc.),
validity (content, construct, criterion-related), response rates,
methods and results of cognitive testing and field-testing and
description of sampling strategies (including payer type) and data
collection protocols, including such elements as mode of
administration, use of advance letters, timing and frequencies of
contacts. In addition, a list of where the instrument has been fielded
should also be included in the submission. Submission of copies of
existing report formats developed to disclose findings to consumers and
providers is desirable, but not required. Additionally, information
about existing database(s) for collecting results gathered using the
instrument(s) or items submitted is helpful, but not required for
submission. Evidence of the criteria should be demonstrated through
submission of peer-reviewed journal article(s) or through the best
evidence available at the time of submission.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
The CAHPS program was initiated in 1995 to develop a survey and
report on consumers' perspectives on the quality of their health plans.
Since that time the CAHPS program, in partnership with CMS and others,
has expanded its scope and developed surveys and reports regarding
patient assessments of care received from individual clinicians, group
practices, in-center hemodialysis services, nursing homes and
hospitals. Now, CMS has asked the CAHPS team to develop a survey to
obtain the consumer's perspective on home health care and services.
One of the top priorities of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services is to increase the transparency in healthcare by providing
quality and cost information to the public. One of the critical
components missing from the current measurement set for home health
agencies is information from the consumer perspective on the quality of
care provided. The proposed instrument described above will address
this need for useful patient assessments.
Dated: September 19, 2006.
Carolyn M. Clancy,
Director.
[FR Doc. 06-8183 Filed 9-22-06; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-90-M