AHCPR’s inpatient data are available on CD-ROM
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in Rockville, MD, has released the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) Release 3, its latest data on hospital inpatient care, conditions, services, and costs. The 1994 data consist of 6.4 million patient records from 904 community hospitals in 17 states.
Together with Releases 1 and 2, the NIS Release 3 is the largest source of discharge-level information for hospital inpatients, regardless of payer, in the United States. All three releases are available on CD-ROMs designed to run on desktop computers.
Among the variables contained in the data are:
• patient demographic characteristics;
• total patient charges;
• diagnoses and procedures;
• admission and discharge status;
• links to hospital and community characteristics;
• lengths of stay;
• weights for national estimates;
• expected pay sources.
These data are useful in the analysis of services of various types of payers and treatment variations; to prioritize strategies for product development by studying conditions treated in hospitals; and to determine the costs of treating specific conditions.
Additionally, the hospital identifiers in NIS Release 3 allow users to obtain detailed information on individual hospitals by linking the data with the American Hospital Association's Survey of Hospitals. Users also obtain county-level information, such as the availability of medical personnel and services, by linking the NIS data to the Bureau of Health Professions’ Area Resource File. The weights included in the data allow users to produce national estimates.
All three releases are available from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161. Telephone: (703) 487-4650. Release 3, NTIS publication No. PB 87-500433, comes in a set of six CD-ROMs in ASCII format and sells for $160. Release 1, which presents data for 1988-92, costs $300; Release 2, which contains data for 1993, costs $160.
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