Att 6_Privacy Act Memo_NCCCP

DATE: August 19, 2013

TO: Irene Prabhu Das,

Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, ARP, ORB, NCI

FROM: NIH Privacy Act Officer

SUBJECT: Applicability of the Privacy Act: Multidisciplinary Treatment Planning (MTP) within the NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP)

This data collection is intended to characterize how NCCCP hospitals define, structure, and implement multidisciplinary treatment planning to initiate a coordinated approach to multidisciplinary care that engages clinicians and other care providers. The web-based, organizational survey will gather data on site definitions and terms, provider teams, meetings, and patient involvement to improve the delivery of quality cancer care and patient outcomes.

The proposed MTP survey will obtain facility level data only for each tumor site, and not individual clinician data. The survey is intended to reflect the organization’s understanding and operations of multidisciplinary treatment planning and not an individual perspective. The NCCCP hospital sites will complete the survey online and the submitted data will be reviewed by the NIH investigators. Once the data are analyzed, it will be shared with the NCCCP sites, community oncologists, and other cancer care specialists as well as health services researchers around the country.

I have determined the Privacy Act will not apply to this data collection because no personally identifiable information will be collected and stored in a record system designed to be retrieved by the name of an individual, or identifier linked to them. A unique identifier will be assigned by the NIH Principal Investigator for each participating hospital and noted on the online survey associated with the individualized web link. However, no hospital or physician name will be on the survey instrument sent to the site. The survey will be completed using SurveyMonkey, an online survey software and questionnaire tool. The web link, online survey instrument and all files submitted through the SurveyMonkey server will be secured by encryption and housed on the third-party website.

If you have any questions, please contact my office at (301) 496-2832.

Karen M. Plá