Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission to OMB for Review and Approval; Public Comment Request; Rural Health Care Coordination Program Performance Improvement Measures, OMB No. 0906-0024-Revision

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Health Resources and Services Administration

Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission to OMB for Review and Approval; Public Comment Request; Rural Health Care Coordination Program Performance Improvement Measures, OMB No. 0906-0024—Revision

AGENCY:

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Department of Health and Human Services.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, HRSA submitted an Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. Comments submitted during the first public review of this ICR will be provided to OMB. OMB will accept further comments from the public during the review and approval period. OMB may act on HRSA's ICR only after the 30-day comment period for this notice has closed.

DATES:

Comments on this ICR should be received no later than July 29, 2026.

ADDRESSES:

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to

www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.

Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request a copy of the clearance requests submitted to OMB for review, email Samantha Miller, the HRSA Information Collection Clearance Officer, at

paperwork@hrsa.gov

or call (301) 443-3983.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Information Collection Request Title:

Rural Health Care Coordination Program Performance Improvement Measures, OMB No. 0906-0024—Revision.

Abstract:

The Rural Health Care Coordination (Care Coordination) Program is authorized under 42 U.S.C. 254c(e) (section 330A(e) of the Public Health Service Act) to promote rural health care services outreach by improving and expanding the delivery of health care services through comprehensive care coordination strategies addressing a primary focus area: (1) heart disease, (2) cancer, (3) chronic lower respiratory disease, (4) stroke, or (5) maternal health. HRSA currently collects information about Care Coordination Program grants using an OMB-approved set of performance measures and seeks to revise that approved collection. The proposed changes are a result of keeping this instrument relevant, responsive to the Care Coordination Program needs and to improve clarity and ease of reporting for respondents.

A 60-day notice published in the

Federal Register

on March 24, 2026, vol. 91, No. 56; pp. 14029-30. There were two public comments recommending the following:

• Additional measures for tracking mental/behavioral and substance use disorder health providers and services,

• Collecting more granular demographic data,

• Establishing more concrete metrics related to workforce and leadership characteristics,

• Advocating for requiring that measures related to how well awardees meet community needs require standardized upstream drivers of health screening tools (

e.g.,

tracking closed-loop referrals), and

• A general recommendation to HRSA to allow grant funds to be used for electronic health record interoperability upgrades.

HRSA will take these suggestions into consideration on future iterations of measure development.

Need and Proposed Use of the Information:

The purpose of the revised data collection is to assess Care Coordination Program awardees' progress in meeting the program goals and how well each awardee meets their community needs. Additionally, HRSA will be able to monitor and assess the impact of the Care Coordination Program and ensure that funds are effectively used to provide services that meet the needs of the awardees' target population(s) needs.

HRSA revised the performance measures that Care Coordination awardees will submit to HRSA on an annual basis. The proposed changes include adding one additional measure in the Leadership and Workforce Composition section, modifying the text of an existing measure to enhance clarity, and correcting the units of measurement on two existing measures.

There is a proposed increase in the total estimated burden hours compared to the currently approved information collection. The increase in burden is to account for changes to the instruments and the time it takes for awardees to refine their existing processes to coordinate and collect data from their partner organizations. These organizations vary in data collection and reporting capacity as well as in the number of member organizations each must coordinate with to report this data to HRSA. The amount of time it takes to build processes to coordinate and collect data from network partners will vary. Larger networks with multiple partners across different organizations are likely to report higher burdens due to the wait time in between coordinating data requests. Networks that already have established working relationships with member organizations may have existing processes in place to effectively collect data for this program.

Likely Respondents:

Respondents will be the Care Coordination Program award recipients.

Burden Statement:

Burden in this context means the time expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose, or provide the information requested. This includes the time needed to review instructions; to develop, acquire, install, and utilize technology and systems for the purpose of collecting, validating, and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to a collection of information; to search data sources; to complete and review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise disclose the information. The total annual burden hours estimated for this ICR are summarized in the table below.

Total Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

Form name

Number of

respondents

Number of

responses per

respondent

Total

responses

Average

burden per

response

(in hours)

Total burden hours

Rural Health Care Coordination Performance Measures

10

1

10

58.18

581.80

Total

10

1

10

58.18

581.80

Maria G. Button,

Director, Executive Secretariat.

[FR Doc. 2026-13065 Filed 6-26-26; 8:45 am]

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