Request for Approval Justification

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0920-0974)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey

PURPOSE:

In order to work continuously to ensure that our programs are effective and meet our customers’ needs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seeks to obtain Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval of a generic clearance to collect feedback from users of the BioSense Platform.

The mission of the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) is to promote the use of high quality syndromic surveillance data for improved nationwide all-hazard situational awareness for public health decision-making and enhanced responses to hazardous events, and outbreaks. Over the past few months, the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) has been operationalizing a more advanced BioSense Platform to provide public health practitioners with enhanced tools to conduct syndromic surveillance activities. The new platform includes ESSENCE, a software application for conducting syndromic surveillance, as well as other tools that will provide users with data analysis, visualization and sharing capabilities. The new BioSense Platform provides public health officials with a common cloud-based health information system with standardized tools and procedures to rapidly collect, share, evaluate and store information. Health officials can use the BioSense Platform to analyze and exchange syndromic data for improving their common awareness of health threats over time and across regional boundaries. NSSP successfully transitioned data for 47 state and local sites to the new BioSense Platform between June-December 2016 and sunset the previous BioSense web application in January 2017.

In an ongoing effort to continually assess the BioSense Platform’s performance and customer satisfaction as new developments are made, this activity seeks to provide a better understanding of how well the new BioSense Platform and associated tools are functioning, if they are meeting user needs as intended, and what may have to be improved.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Respondents to the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Site Administrators and the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users will be site administrators and local users respectively. These are individuals in local or state governments that transitioned to the new BioSense Platform between June-December 2016.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ X] 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 and/or may gain experience in the future with the program.

Name:_Cassandra Davis, MPH_______________________________________________

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

Personally Identifiable Information:

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

BURDEN HOURS

There will be two separate surveys, one for site administrators and one for local users. Each survey will be web-based using Epi Info and will include 39 questions for site administrators and 45 questions for local users. It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete the site administrator’s survey and approximately 10 minutes to complete the local user’s survey. For more information on Epi Info please visit http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/index.html.

There were 47 jurisdictions that were transitioned to the new BioSense Platform between June-December 2016 and each jurisdiction has a site administrator and, likely, a site user. Therefore, 94 respondents could be potentially surveyed (47 site administrators and 47 local users) for a total response burden of 20 hours (12 hours for 47 site administrators and 8 hours for 47 local users).

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Site Administrator	47	15/60	12 hours
Local User	47	10/60	8 hours
Totals			20 hours

There will be no cost to the respondents other than their time to respond to the survey.

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $4892.30.

There are no equipment or overhead costs. This estimate is based on the time required for one senior CDC scientist (GS-14) to supervise and develop reports including recommendations based on survey results; one CDC scientist (GS-12 equivalent) to design the survey protocol, develop the web-based survey, develop the analysis plan and oversee the analysis and one contract position (equivalent to GS 9-11) to implement the survey and conduct the analysis.

Staff or Contractor	Hours	Average Hourly Rate	Cost
FTE staff (GS-12): survey protocol design, create web-based survey, develop analysis plan, oversee the analysis, and contribute to report development	40	$38.69	$ 1547.60
Contractor staff (GS-9-11): survey implementation and analysis	60	$27.00	$1,620
FTE supervisor (GS-14): Provide oversight and guidance on instrument development and data analysis. Contribute to developing reports including recommendations based on survey results	30	$57.49	$ 1724.70
Totals			$4,892.30

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

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? [X ] Yes [ ] No

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?

The NSSP team has a list of all jurisdictions that were previously sending data to the BioSense web application. Among those jurisdictions, 47 transitioned to the new BioSense Platform between June-December 2016. The NSSP team maintains points of contact information, including site administrators, for jurisdictions that participate in BioSense. This information will be utilized to send an invitation email to site administrators of the 47 jurisdictions mentioned above inviting them to participate in the survey. The site administrator will also select one local user in their jurisdiction who has accessed the BioSense Platform in the past 30 days to take the local user survey.

Administration of the Instrument

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

[ X ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

The BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Site Administrators and the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users will be administered as web-based surveys and respondents will be given two weeks to complete the surveys. An initial invitation email with a link to the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Site Administrators will be sent to all 47 site administrators. The email will request the site administrators to complete the survey. In addition, the email will request the site administrators to send an email to a local user that requests the local user to complete the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users. It will be specified that the local user needs to be someone who regularly uses the BioSense Platform and has accessed the Platform in the past 30 days.

A draft email containing a link to the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users will be attached to the email sent to site administrators. The site administrators will be asked to use this attached draft email to request a local user to complete the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users.

A reminder email will be sent twice to site administrators as per the following schedule: the first reminder will be sent 7 days prior to the closing date of the survey and the second reminder will be sent on the day before the closing date. Each reminder will also include a request for the site administrators to send a reminder to the local user who was previously sent the BioSense Platform User Satisfaction Survey for Local Users. A draft email that can be used to provide a reminder to the local user will be attached to the reminder email to the site administrator. The site administrator will be asked to use this attached draft email to send a reminder to the local user. Respondents have the option of completing the survey over several sittings if they so choose. The survey does not track individual responses.

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

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

Instructions for completing Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback”

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Provide the name of the collection that is the subject of the request. (e.g. Comment card for soliciting feedback on xxxx)

PURPOSE: Provide a brief description of the purpose of this collection and how it will be used. If this is part of a larger study or effort, please include this in your explanation.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: Provide a brief description of the targeted group or groups for this collection of information. These groups must have experience with the program.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: Check one box. If you are requesting approval of other instruments under the generic, you must complete a form for each instrument.

CERTIFICATION: Please read the certification carefully. If you incorrectly certify, the collection will be returned as improperly submitted or it will be disapproved.

Personally Identifiable Information: Provide answers to the questions. Note: Agencies should only collect PII to the extent necessary, and they should only retain PII for the period of time that is necessary to achieve a specific objective.

Gifts or Payments: If you answer yes to the question, please describe the incentive and provide a justification for the amount.

BURDEN HOURS:

Category of Respondents: Identify who you expect the respondents to be in terms of the following categories: (1) Individuals or Households;(2) Private Sector; (3) State, local, or tribal governments; or (4) Federal Government. Only one type of respondent can be selected per row.

No. of Respondents: Provide an estimate of the Number of respondents.

Participation Time: Provide an estimate of the amount of time required for a respondent to participate (e.g. fill out a survey or participate in a focus group)

Burden: Provide the Annual burden hours: Multiply the Number of responses and the participation time and divide by 60.

FEDERAL COST: Provide an estimate of the annual cost to the Federal government.

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

The selection of your targeted respondents. Please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them. If the answer is yes, to the first question, you may provide the sampling plan in an attachment.

Administration of the Instrument: Identify how the information will be collected. More than one box may be checked. Indicate whether there will be interviewers (e.g. for surveys) or facilitators (e.g., for focus groups) used.

Submit all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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