Beginning
in 1985, two data collection procedures have been used in the survey. One is a manual
system in which sample selection and medical transcription from the hospital records to
abstract forms is performed by the hospitals staff or by staff of the U.S. Bureau of
the Census on behalf of NCHS. The other data collection procedure is an automated system
in which NCHS purchases machine-readable medical record data from commercial
organizations, State data systems, hospitals, or hospital associations. The medical
abstract form and the automated data tapes contain items that relate to the personal
characteristics of the patient. These items include age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital
status, and expected sources of payment. Administrative items such as admission and
discharge dates (which allow calculation of length of stay), as well as discharge status
are also included. Medical information about patients includes diagnoses and procedures
coded to the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical
Modification (ICD-9-CM).
A detailed description of the NHDS is included in "Design and
Operation of the National Hospital Discharge Survey: 1988 Redesign,"
Vital and Health Statistics, Series 1, Number 39. Data from the NHDS are available annually and are used to examine important topics of interest in public health and for a variety of activities by governmental, scientific, academic, and commercial institutions. National Hospital Discharge Survey data are available in publications, on public-use data tapes, data diskettes, CD-ROMs and downloadable files from the FTP server.
This page last
reviewed February 09, 2009
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