Notice2025-18658
Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
September 25, 2025
Issuing agencies
Health and Human Services DepartmentAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Abstract
This notice announces the intention of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to request that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve the extension, without change, of the currently approved information collection project "Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Child Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (Child HCAHPS) Survey Database."
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 184 (Thursday, September 25, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 184 (Thursday, September 25, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 46210-46212]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-18658]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection;
Comment Request
AGENCY: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HHS.
ACTION: Information collection notice.
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SUMMARY: This notice announces the intention of the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to request that the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) approve the extension, without change, of
the currently approved information collection project ``Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Child Hospital Consumer
Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (Child HCAHPS) Survey
Database.''
DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by November 24, 2025.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be submitted to:
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#9ac8dfcad5c8cec9d9d6dfdbc8dbd4d9dfd5dcdcd3d9dfc8dafbf2e8ebb4f2f2e9b4fdf5ec"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="88dacdd8c7dadcdbcbc4cdc9dac9c6cbcdc7cecec1cbcddac8e9e0faf9a6e0e0fba6efe7fe">[email protected]</span></a>.
Copies of the proposed collection plans, data collection
instruments, and specific details on the estimated burden can be
obtained from the AHRQ Reports Clearance Officer.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Margie Shofer, AHRQ Reports Clearance
Officer, 301-427-1696 or by email at
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#144651445b4640475758515546555a57515b52525d57514654757c66653a7c7c673a737b62"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="431106130c111710000f060211020d00060c05050a00061103222b31326d2b2b306d242c35">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Proposed Project
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Child Hospital
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (Child HCAHPS)
Survey Database
The Child HCAHPS survey assesses the experiences of pediatric
patients (less than 18 years old) and their parents or guardians with
inpatient care. It complements the CAHPS Adult Hospital Survey
(HCAHPS), which asks adult inpatients about their experiences. The
Child HCAHPS Survey Database is a voluntary database available to all
Child HCAHPS users to support both quality improvement and research to
enhance the patient-centeredness of care delivered to pediatric
hospital patients. AHRQ requests that OMB approve the extension,
without change, of AHRQ's collection of information for the Child
HCAHPS Survey Database (OMB Control number 0935-0243, last approved on
October 12, 2022).
Rationale for the Information Collection
Like the survey instrument itself and related toolkit materials to
support survey implementation, aggregated Child HCAHPS Survey Database
results will be made publicly available on AHRQ's CAHPS website.
Technical assistance will be provided by AHRQ through its contractor at
no charge to hospitals to facilitate the access and use of these
materials for quality improvement and research. Technical assistance is
also provided to support Child HCAHPS data submission.
The Child HCAHPS Survey Database supports AHRQ's goals of promoting
improvements in the quality and patient-centeredness of health care in
pediatric hospital settings.
This (research/project/database/etc.) seeks to answer the following
research questions:
1. What are the key drivers of patient experience in pediatric
settings?
2. How do pediatric patients experience of care vary across the
West, Midwest, South, and Northeast regions?
3. What are the highest and lowest scoring measures in specific
areas of care for pediatric hospitals?
This research has the following goals:
1. Improve care provided by individual hospitals and hospital
systems.
2. Offer several products and services, including providing survey
results presented through summary chartbooks, custom analyses, private
reports and data for research purposes.
3. Provides information to help identify strengths and areas with
potential for improvement in patient care.
Survey data from the Child HCAHPS Survey Database will be used to
produce two types of reporting products:
<bullet> Hospital Feedback Reports. Hospitals that submit data will
have access to a customized report that presents findings for their
individual submission along with results from the database overall.
These ``private'' hospital feedback reports will display sortable
results for each of the Child HCAHPS core composite measures and for
each individual survey item that forms the composite measure.
<bullet> Child HCAHPS Chartbook. A summary-level Chartbook will be
compiled to display top box and other proportional scores for the Child
HCAHPS items and composite measures broken out by selected hospital
characteristics (e.g., region, hospital size, ownership and
affiliation, etc.).
This study is being conducted by AHRQ through its contractor,
Westat, pursuant to AHRQ's statutory authority to conduct and support
research on health care and on systems for the delivery of such care,
including activities with respect to the quality, effectiveness,
efficiency, appropriateness and value of healthcare services; to
quality measurement and improvement; and health surveys and database
development [42 U.S.C 299a(a)(1), (2), and (8)].
[[Page 46211]]
Method of Collection
To achieve the goals of this project, the following data
collections will be implemented:
<bullet> Registration with the submission website to obtain an
account with a secure username and password: The point-of-contact
(POC), often the hospital, completes a number of data submission steps
and forms, beginning with the completion of the online registration
form. The purpose of this form is to collect basic contact information
about the organization and initiate the registration process;
<bullet> Submission of signed Data Use Agreements (DUAs) and survey
questionnaires: The purpose of the data use agreement, completed by the
participating hospital, is to state how data submitted by or on behalf
of hospitals will be used and provide confidentiality assurances;
<bullet> Submission of hospital information form: The purpose of
this form, completed by the participating organization, is to collect
background characteristics of the hospital;
<bullet> Submission of survey data files: POCs upload their data
file using the Hospital data file specifications to ensure that users
submit standardized and consistent data in the way variables are named,
coded, and formatted.
Estimated Annual Respondent Burden
Exhibit 1 shows the estimated burden hours for the respondent to
participate in the database. The 54 POCs in Exhibit 1 are a combination
of an estimated 50 hospitals that currently administer the Child HCAHPS
survey and the four survey vendors assisting them.
Each hospital will register online for submission. The online
Registration form will require about five minutes to complete. Each
submitter will also complete a hospital information form. The online
hospital information form takes on average five minutes to complete.
The DUA will be completed by each of the 50 participating hospitals.
Survey vendors do not sign or submit DUAs. The DUA are submitted by the
participating hospitals and requires about three minutes to sign and
upload to the online submission system. Each submitter, which in most
cases will be the survey vendor performing the data collection, will
provide a copy of their questionnaire and the survey data file in the
required file format. Survey data files must conform to the data file
layout specifications provided by the Child HCAHPS Survey Database.
Since the unit of analysis is at the hospital level, submitters will
upload one data file per hospital. Once a data file is uploaded, the
file will be automatically checked to ensure it conforms to the
specifications, and a data file status report will be produced and made
available to the submitter. Submitters will review each report and will
be expected to correct any errors in their data file and resubmit if
necessary. It will take about one hour to submit the data for each
hospital. The total burden is estimated to be 61 hours annually.
Exhibit 1--Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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Number of Number of
Form name respondents/ responses per Hours per Total burden
POCs POC response hours
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Registration Form............................... 50 1 5/60 4
Hospital Information Form....................... 50 1 5/60 4
Data Use Agreement.............................. 50 1 3/60 3
Data Files Submission........................... 4 12.5 1 50
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Total....................................... NA NA NA 61
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Exhibit 2 shows the estimated annualized cost burden based on the
respondents' time to complete one submission process. The cost burden
is estimated to be $6,801 annually.
Exhibit 2--Estimated Annualized Cost Burden
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Adjusted
Form name Total burden Average hourly hourly wage Total cost
hours wage rate * rate ** burden
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Registration Form............................... 4 \a\ $66.22 $132.44 $530
Hospital Information Form....................... 4 \a\ 66.22 132.44 530
Data Use Agreement.............................. 3 \b\ 126.41 252.82 758
Data Files Submission........................... 50 \c\ 49.83 99.66 4,983
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Total........................................... 61 NA NA 6,801
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* National Compensation Survey: Occupational wages in the United States May 2024, ``U.S. Department of Labor,
Bureau of Labor Statistics.''
** The Adjusted Hourly Rate was estimated at 200% of the hourly wage.
\a\ Based on the mean hourly wage for Medical and Health Services Managers (11-9111).
\b\ Based on the mean hourly wage for Chief Executives (11-1011).
\c\ Based on the mean hourly wages for Computer Programmer (15-1251).
Request for Comments
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501-
3520, comments on AHRQ's information collection are requested with
regard to any of the following: (a) whether the proposed collection of
information is necessary for the proper performance of AHRQ's health
care research and health care information dissemination functions,
including whether the information will have practical utility; (b) the
accuracy of AHRQ's estimate of burden (including hours and costs) of
the proposed collection(s) of information; (c) ways to enhance the
quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected; and
(d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information upon
the
[[Page 46212]]
respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or
other forms of information technology.
Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized
and included in the Agency's subsequent request for OMB approval of the
proposed information collection. All comments will become a matter of
public record.
Dated: September 23, 2025.
Mamatha Pancholi,
Deputy Director.
[FR Doc. 2025-18658 Filed 9-24-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-90-P
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