Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality March 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces the intention of the agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to request the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to allow the proposed information collection project: ``National Study of the Hospital Adverse Event Reporting Survey''. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A), AHRQ invites the public to comment on this proposed information collection. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2005, and allowed 60 days for public comment. No public comments were received. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment.

In accordance with section 10(a) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, this notice announces the first meeting of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group mandated by section 1014 of the Medicare Modernization Act.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the U.S. Department of Education are soliciting the submission of instruments or items that measure the quality of healthcare experienced by people with mobility impairment. The instruments or items will be considered for inclusion in a CAHPS[reg] survey of people with mobility impairment (PWMI). Items or survey instruments may be submitted from researchers, health plans, other health care providers, disability organizations, stakeholders, vendors and other interested parties. This initiative is in response to suggestions from a significant number of stakeholders to develop a CAHPS[reg] tool that measures the quality of care as perceived by adults with disabilities, and to provide performance data to health plans and others that are actionable for quality improvement and access. Our response to stakeholder requests will ultimately provide users with a flexible survey tool to assess the quality of healthcare services for adults with disabilities across multiple settings. The focus of this initial project will be only on people with mobility impairments, and subsequent survey projects may focus on other aspects of disability. Many questions in the existing CAHPS instruments address concerns of people with mobility impairments, including access, communication, courtesy and respect, and shared decision-making. We are particularly interested in identifying and considering new content areas, new response categories and scales for existing questions, and revised wording or question order to make existing questions disability- appropriate.

This notice informs the research community that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is requesting applications for competitive supplemental grants from the seven Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) for which it provided funding in fiscal year 2004. The purpose of the competitive supplements is to provide funds for existing CERTs research centers to build on and to expand their research work and expertise with respect to comparative effectiveness research specifically to carry out short term projects that will address research gaps in priority subject areas identified and published pursuant to section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA). Since the inception of the CERTs program in 1999, the CERTs research centers have gathered significant data regarding therapeutics, refined research methodologies, and developed collaborative research resources. They are therefore uniquely prepared and suited to efficiently carry out pharmaco-epidemiology and methodological studies related to comparative effectiveness research that is pertinent to developing therapeutic evidence identified as being of high interest to the Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP programs. For this reason, this solicitation will be for a limited competition among CERTs grantees.