National Hospital Discharge Survey

• Web site: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/hdasd/nhds.htm
• This database does not include cancer outcomes.
• This database is not linked to a cancer registry.

Description

The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), which has been conducted annually since 1965, collects data from a sample of approximately 270,000 inpatient records acquired from a national sample of about 500 hospitals. Only hospitals with an average length of stay of fewer than 30 days for all patients, general hospitals, or children's general hospitals are included in the survey. Information collected includes diagnoses, surgical and nonsurgical procedures, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, immunizations, allergy shots, anesthetics, and dietary supplements.

The survey is sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics. Data from the NHDS are available annually as publications, on public-use data tapes, data diskettes, CD-ROMs and downloadable files from the FTP server.

Selected References

Utilization

Kleinman JC, Machlin SR, Madans J, Makuc D, Feldman JJ. Changing practice in the surgical treatment of breast cancer. The national perspective. Med Care 1983 Dec;21(12):1232-42.