The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), which has been conducted annually since 1965, is a national probability survey designed to meet the need for information on characteristics of inpatients discharged from non-Federal short-stay hospitals in the United States. The NHDS collects data from a sample of approximately 270,000 inpatient records acquired from a national sample of about 500 hospitals.
Years Available: 1965-present
Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria: 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. Federal, military, and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, as well as hospital units of institutions (such as prison hospitals), and hospitals with fewer than six beds staffed for patient use, are excluded.
Methods: Medical record abstract
Sampling Design: Cross sectional design containing a national sample of 500 non-Federal, short-stay hospitals or approximately 8% of the total.
Sample Size: 270,000 annually
Unit of Observation: Hospital discharge
Limitations: Race is not stated in approxiamtely 20% of the records; ethnicity is not stated in 75% of the records and is not on public use tapes.
Data Format: SAS/SPSS
Publisher: CDC Center for Health Statistics
URL:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/hdasd/nhds.htm
Variables: