National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1997 Emergency Department Summary Advance Data 304. An estimated 94.9 million visits were made to hospital emergency departments (ED's) in non-Federal, short-stay, or general hospitals according to a recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics.This report titled "National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1997 Emergency Department Summary" presents data on ED visits from the 1997 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). The 1997 NHAMCS included several new areas of data collection that include mode of arrival, is patient pregnant, does patient belong to an HMO, immediacy with which patient should be seen, presenting level of pain, and time seen by physician. These areas are in addition to the data collected by patient, hospital, and visit characteristics. This survey is a national probability survey conducted by the Division of Health Care Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data Highlights: Persons 75 years of age and over had a higher ED visit rate (61.5 visits per 100 persons) than persons in the other age categories. ED utilization for the black population was 83 percent higher than for the white population. Stomach and abdominal pain and cramps and spasms were the most frequently mentioned principal reasons for visits to the ED. In 1997 injury and poisoning-related visits represented 37 percent of all ED visits. Approximately 35.1 million ED visits were made for injury and poisoning, a rate of 13.2 visits per 100 persons. Keywords: emergency department visits, diagnoses, injury, ICD-9-C
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January 11, 2007
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