Information Sheet
July 2008
National Health Care Surveys
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About NCHS
The National Health Care Surveys
Provider Sites Surveyed
Examples of Data from the National Health Care
Surveys
Challenges and Future Opportunities
About NCHS
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation's
principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address
health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health
and health policy decisions.
Collaborating with other public and private health partners, NCHS employs a
variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from
multiple sources. This process provides a broad perspective to help us
understand the population's health, influences on health, and health outcomes.
The National Health Care Surveys
The National Health Care Surveys are designed to meet the need for
information about the organizations and providers that supply health care, the
services rendered, and the patients they serve. These data are used to study
shifts in the delivery of care across the health care system, monitor changing
patterns of disease and treatments, and measure the impact of new technologies
and policies.
Provider Sites Surveyed
- Physician offices
- Emergency/outpatient departments
- Inpatient departments
- Nursing homes
- Home health agencies
- Hospice agencies
- Residential care facilities
- Ambulatory surgery facilities
Examples of Data from the National Health Care
Surveys
Health information technologies, such as electronic medical records (EMRs),
have the potential to enhance the quality of care and efficiency of
patient-provider encounters.
* Includes full or partial EMR National
Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Hospital Ambulatory
Medical
Care Survey, 2001-2006.
Four features of EMR are considered to be minimally necessary to meet
national standards for functional electronic health records: electronic clinical
notes, prescription ordering, computerized test ordering, and electronic test
results.
- In 2006, 29.2 percent of physician's offices reported EMR adoption.
Only 12.4 percent of those physicians reported having all four of the
EMR components; an additional 16.8 percent reported having at least
partial EMR systems.
- A total of 44.9 percent of hospital-based emergency departments and
34.8 percent of hospital-based outpatient departments reported having
full or partial EMRs.
Source: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 1999-2005.
Although antibiotics are essential to medical care, widespread antibiotic use
has led to the development of bacteria resistant to antibiotics and infections
that are more difficult to treat. NCHS tracks antibiotic use and data showed
increases in antibiotic use at children's visits to physician offices from 1980
through 1992. This raised concern about inappropriate prescribing practices for
children. In the mid-1990s, a series of public health initiatives educated the
public and health care providers about judicious use of antibiotics in children.
- For children less than 15 years of age, between 1995 and 2005, there
was a 30 percent decline in the number of antibiotic prescriptions
written at physician office visits.
- The rate of antibiotic prescription per physician office visit for
children also declined, suggesting that physicians have responded to
these initiatives.
Other recent highlights include:
- In 2005, patients in the United States made an estimated 1.2 billion
visits to physician offices, hospital outpatient departments, and
hospital emergency departments, a rate of 4.0 visits per person
annually. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of visits per person
increased by about 20 percent in primary care offices, surgical care
offices, and hospital outpatient departments; by about 37 percent in
medical specialty offices; and 7 percent in emergency departments. The
aging of the U.S. population has contributed to these increased visit
rates, because older patients receive more health care than younger
patients.
- In 2005, there were approximately 35 million discharges (excluding
newborns) from non-federal short-stay hospitals in the United States.
The average length of hospital stay declined from 7.8 days in 1970 to
4.8 days in 2005. Persons aged 65 years and over comprised 38 percent of
all inpatients.
- In 2004, there were almost 1.5 million nursing home residents in an
estimated 16,100 nursing homes in the United States. Between 1997 and
2004, the number of nursing home facilities decreased about 5 percent
and the number of residents decreased about 7 percent.
Challenges and Future Opportunities
- Collect data on residential care facilities. Data are needed to help
understand emerging patterns of care and shape long-term care policy for the
aging population. In partnership with the Assistant Secretary for Planning
and Evaluation and other organizations, NCHS is currently field testing the
first nationally representative survey of residential care facilities and
their residents to be conducted in 2009 or 2010.
- Improve the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS). Current
operations for the NHDS are tied to data reported on the Uniform Bill. An
effort is underway to redesign the NHDS to allow for more flexibility in
data collected from hospitals to include costs, in-depth clinical data,
better data on quality of care, patient demographics and health related
outcomes. The full scale redesign is planned for 2010.
- Collect data on ambulatory surgery on a regular cycle to document the
growth in outpatient surgeries which has surpassed that in inpatient
settings in recent years. Plans are being developed to incorporate
ambulatory surgery centers into the ongoing annual National Hospital
Ambulatory Medical Care Survey at some point in the future.
- Expand the range of providers captured in the survey for more
comprehensive coverage of the health care system. For example, in ambulatory
care, expand the sample to include providers not currently covered such as
radiologists, diagnostic centers, and alternative health care providers.
- Expand the sample sizes in the various surveys to more accurately
monitor disparities in health care among priority populations such as racial
and ethnic minorities and rural communities.
- Expand the availability of provider-based data to monitor and assess
quality of care and provide national benchmark data for comparison with
State and local performance. Data collection forms and sampling frames can
be adapted to address quality of care issues, and information can be linked
to data on provider characteristics.
Page Last Modified:
October 15, 2008