Has your hospital been selected to take part in the National Hospital Care Survey?

Check out Why Participate in NHCS and How Can Your Hospital Participate in NHCS pages!

The National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) describes national patterns of health care delivery in hospital-based settings, including inpatient departments, emergency departments (EDs), and outpatient departments (OPDs). Data elements collected include demographics, diagnoses, procedures, laboratory tests, and medications. Additionally, NHCS collects patient-level identifiers that allow a patient’s episodes of care to be linked between hospital inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as to outside databases such as the National Death Index, providing a more complete picture of patient care.

Data on patients and their care are collected from a sample of hospitals to provide national estimates of service use. These data enable health care decision makers, policy makers, and researchers to track the latest trends affecting hospitals, to study relationships between the organization and delivery of health care, and to present national data on the care received in hospitals. A sample of hospitals is currently being recruited for this survey.

Participating hospitals are asked to:

• Complete a short interview to assess survey eligibility.
• Provide data on all inpatient stays and ED visits from the hospital’s electronic health records (EHR) system, Uniform Bill (UB)-04 administrative claims data, or an electronic file in same format that is submitted to the state. OPD data may be requested in the future.
• Complete an annual questionnaire on hospital characteristics.