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If you have additional questions, please contact Jaumeiko Brown at 301-296-8750 or JBrown2@asha.org.
1. What are the responsibilities of a NOMS Subscriber?
A Subscriber, often an administrator or designee, is the liaison between ASHA and the organization that is collecting the NOMS data. The Subscriber must be an ASHA member and obtain any necessary approvals from the organization prior to participation in NOMS. The responsibilities of the Subscriber are to coordinate the training process, to ensure that all staff become Registered NOMS Users, as well as to inform ASHA of any organizational changes affecting NOMS data collection, including the addition or elimination of programs or staffing changes. The Subscriber must also ensure that all applicable patients are included in the NOMS data collection with regular submission of NOMS data to ASHA.
2. Who is a Registered NOMS User?
A Registered NOMS User is an ASHA member or Clinical Fellow who successfully completes the User Registration Test. All speech-language pathologists who will be collecting NOMS data for a facility or organization must become Registered NOMS Users by completing the self-study training program and individually taking the User Registration Test.
3. What is required for staff training?
Each Subscriber will receive the necessary training materials for his/her staff. The NOMS training has been designed as a self-study program and includes a User Registration Test. Some of the larger departments currently participating in NOMS have reported that the staff has reviewed the training materials and discussed the contents as a group to prepare for the User Registration Test. Other groups have left the training up to the individual clinicians. Regardless of the training format, each clinician must review the materials and individually take the User Registration Test. Clinicians may earn 0.2 ASHA CEUs for successfully completing the training to become a Registered NOMS User.
4. How much time is required for the completion of staff training?
The amount of time you need for training depends on how it is conducted. On average, it takes approximately two hours to review the training materials and take the User Registration Test.
5. Will there be a charge for participating in NOMS?
No. Participation in NOMS is a member benefit and there is no charge for participation, supplies, or training materials. In exchange for submitting data to ASHA, your facility will have access to data reports profiling your organization against national data, and if applicable, system data. Facilities may also run customized analyses of their data, as well as national data, using our web-based reporting system.
6. How can I participate in NOMS?
Organizations may choose to participate in the Pre-Kindergarten and/or the Adult Health Care Component(s) in one of two ways -
- As an individual facility - ALL speech-language pathologists must be members of ASHA
- As part of a large national health care system - at least 75% of staff must be members of ASHA; however, ALL SLPs must be ASHA certified.
7. How will the data be collected?
There will be two options for data collection. You may enter any case into NOMS by either the Internet or the use of scannable forms.
8. How much time is required for data collection?
Clinicians are asked to collect data at two junctures, when speech and language intervention is initiated, and again when it is discontinued. Data collection takes only a few minutes per patient and includes easily accessible information that is already a part of the patient's record.
9. How do we submit NOMS data?
All NOMS data should be submitted on a regular basis to ASHA. Completed forms should be sent to ASHA on a monthly basis. We recommend that you make copies of the data collection forms for your files prior to sending them to ASHA. We will be unable to return any originals. Forms should be sent to:
NOMS Project Administrator
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
2200 Research Boulevard #245
Rockville, MD 20850
10. Must all staff participate in data collection?
Yes. 100% participation is necessary. In order for you to obtain meaningful data, outcomes information must be collected on all patients within any program that is participating in NOMS. It is, however, not necessary that all programs at a single facility be included in the data collection. For example, an organization may decide to collect data on inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient and home health patients, but not on acute care patients. That is acceptable as long as all of the staff meeting the registration requirements collect data on all of their patients in each of those designated programs.
11. What volume of patients must an organization generate in order to participate in NOMS?
There is no minimum number of patients needed to subscribe to NOMS; however, all patients within a participating program must be included in the data collection. The number of patients is not important. However, the larger the patient database, the more reflective the outcomes will be of your practice. We recommend that the analysis of any data containing small sample sizes be used cautiously in order to protect the confidentiality of the patients and to ensure the integrity of the data. If a speech-language pathologist is in a solo private practice, it may take longer to build this database, but the outcomes information will still be useful in shaping clinical practice.
12. Do we need to begin participating in NOMS by any specific date?
No. NOMS is an ongoing database, therefore, you can begin participating at any time that best meets the needs of your organization. However, we ask that you complete the training and begin data collection within 90 days of your organization's registration. You may choose to begin collecting the data in a few programs and then gradually introduce additional programs, as you deem appropriate.
13. What length of commitment must an organization make in order to subscribe to NOMS?
Data will not be beneficial to an organization unless they make a commitment of at least one year. However, we hope an organization will continue to collect data on an ongoing basis because this will provide the most useful information about trends, clinical practice, and changes in the industry.
14. Do we need to obtain our Institutional Review Board's approval or notify the
patients and their families before we can participate in NOMS?
It depends on the policy of your organization. However, this has not been necessary for most organizations. ASHA is not asking you to withhold or change treatment intervention in any way, nor is ASHA asking for data that will allow us to identify individual patients (i.e. name, date of birth, etc). Rather, you are being asked to centralize data that are already a part of the patient record. Each organization will assign its own patient identification numbers and ASHA will have no way of identifying individual patients. As a Subscriber, you will be asked to sign a Letter of Agreement stating that you have authority/permission to release the data to ASHA for purposes of advocating for the profession. Confidentiality of the data will be maintained.
15. Should any population be excluded from the data collection?
At this time, the Functional Communication Measures (FCMs) have not been adequately designed to meet the needs of patients seen for an evaluation only, adults with developmental disabilities, or children with only voice or fluency disorders. In the future, we hope to address the needs of these populations.
16. Can we use the Adult FCMs with adolescents?
The Adult FCMs have been designed for persons 16 years of age or older who receive speech and language intervention for an acquired cognitive-communication and/or swallowing disorder.
17. Do we need to use any specific tests or protocols besides the Functional Communication Measures (FCMs) to participate in NOMS?
No. The FCMs are functional descriptions of a patient's communication and/or swallowing abilities and are not dependent upon administration of any specific assessment tools, method of intervention, or therapeutic techniques.
18. Will NOMS be able to track patients along the continuum of care?
Yes. However, the outcomes and changes in functional communication and/or swallowing abilities within individual programs need to be determined first in order to reflect the benefits of speech and language intervention at each level of care. In order to be able to link across the continuum of care, patients will need to maintain the same identification number at each level of care. This is certainly not a requirement to participate in NOMS, but it will be helpful at such times as we are able to analyze data across the continuum of care.
Outcomes in Health Care | Benefits of NOMS | Using NOMS Data
Collecting NOMS Data | How to Become Involved | Register for NOMS | FAQ
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