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Survey
description
Data
file description
List
of data file variables at a glance
Data
file technical characteristics
Geographic
coverage
Data
availability
Ordering
information
Documentation
contents
Related
reports
Contact
Ambulatory
Health Care Data Web Page
Survey
description
The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) is designed
to collect data on the utilization and provision of ambulatory care
services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments. Findings are
based on a national sample of visits to the emergency departments and
outpatient departments of noninstitutional general and short-stay
hospitals, exclusive of Federal, military, and Veterans Administration
hospitals, located in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The
survey uses a four-stage probability design with samples of geographically
defined areas, hospitals within these areas, clinics with hospitals, and
patient visits within clinics.
Specially trained interviewers visit the hospitals prior to their participation in the survey to explain survey procedures, verify eligibility, develop a sampling plan, and train hospital staff in data collection procedures. The survey instrument is the Patient Record form, which is provided in two versions, one for use in outpatient departments and another for use in emergency departments. Hospital staff are instructed to complete Patient Record forms for a systematic random sample of patient visits during a randomly assigned 4-week reporting period. Data are obtained on selected demographic characteristics of the patients, clinical and other characteristics of the visit, and certain characteristics of the hospital, such as type of ownership.
Data
file description
The data set file for each
year contains two separate files--one for outpatient department visits and
another for emergency department visits. Each record on the file contains
a complete description of the ambulatory care visit, based on information
provided on the Patient Record forms. Additionally, each record contains
the statistical weight for inflating the sample visit to reflect annual
utilization of hospital outpatient departments or emergency departments in
the United States. Diagnosis, cause of injury, and procedure data are
coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision,
Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM).
Patient's reason for visit and medications provided or prescribed are
coded using internal systems developed by the National Center for Health
Statistics.
Data
file technical characteristics
The following list describes the specific characteristics of each file for
each data year. Some of the CD-ROMs come with an ASCII format and some
comes with Statistical Export and Tabulation System (SETS)
retrieval software.
| Data year |
Type
of file |
Number
of records |
| 2002 | Emergency dept. | 37,337 |
| Outpatient dept. | 35,586 | |
| 2001 | Emergency dept. | 34,546 |
| Outpatient dept. | 33,567 | |
| 2000 | Emergency dept. | 25,622 |
| Outpatient dept. | 27,510 | |
| 1999 | Emergency dept. | 21,103 |
| Outpatient dept. | 29,487 | |
| 1998 | Emergency dept. | 24,175 |
| Outpatient dept. | 29,402 | |
| 1997 | Emergency dept. | 22,209 |
| Outpatient dept. | 30,107 | |
| 1996 | Emergency dept. | 21,902 |
| Outpatient dept. | 29,806 | |
| 1995 | Emergency dept. | 21,886 |
| Outpatient dept. | 28,393 | |
| 1994 | Emergency dept. | 26,547 |
| Outpatient dept. | 29,095 | |
| 1993 | Emergency dept. | 29,117 |
| Outpatient dept. | 28,357 | |
| 1992 | Emergency dept. | 36,271 |
| Outpatient dept. | 35,114 |
Note: Each CD-ROM contains two files, one for outpatient department data and one for emergency department data.
Geographic
coverage
Data are available for the United States as a whole and for four
geographic regions.
Data
availability
The NHAMCS
began in 1992 and is conducted on an annual basis. Public use data files
are available for each survey year from 1992-2002 as downloadable ASCII
files from the Ambulatory Health Care Data website.
Data are also available on CD-ROM for each survey year. Data on CD-ROM are
accessed via Statistical Export and Tabulation Software (SETS) which comes
with the CD. Some years of data are also available on CD-ROM in ASCII
format.
Ordering
information
SETS
CD-ROMs are available at no charge from NCHS or may be purchased from the
Government Printing Office (GPO)
when first released. ASCII data for individual years may
be purchased through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
As prices vary, please contact NTIS or GPO for current order numbers and
pricing. For availability, please check the listing of CD-ROM
and Video Products.
Documentation
contents
Complete documentation for each year of data is available
for downloading.
The CD-ROMs for each year contain complete electronic documentation for
the dataset and the SETS software.
Related
reports
Detailed survey
results are published in Vital
and Health Statistics Series 13 reports, and are also
available in less detail in Advance
Data reports. A comprehensive list of all published
reports from NHAMCS is available. Information concerning future reports may be
obtained by calling the Ambulatory Care Statistics Branch.
Contact
Susan M. Schappert
Ambulatory Care Statistics Branch
Division of Health Care Statistics
3311 Toledo Road, Room 3409
Hyattsville, Maryland 20782
(301) 458-4480
E-mail: sds0@cdc.gov
This page last reviewed October 15, 2008
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