National Hospital Care Survey

The National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) is designed to provide accurate and reliable health care statistics that answer key questions of interest to health care and public health professionals, researchers, and health care policy makers. This includes tracking the latest trends affecting hospitals and health care organizations and factors that influence the use of health care resources, the quality of health care, and disparities in health care services provided to population subgroups in the United States.

NHCS integrates inpatient data formerly collected by the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), emergency department (ED) and outpatient department (OPD) data collected by the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), and substance-involved visit data previously collected by the Drug-Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). The integration of these three surveys allows examination of care provided across treatment settings. It will also be possible to link these survey data to outside data sources such as the National Death Index to obtain a more complete picture of patient care.

Participation in the National Health Care Surveys May Allow Eligible Professionals, Eligible Hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals to Earn Credit for Meaningful Use [PDF – 143 KB]

Has your hospital been selected to take part in the National Hospital Care Survey? Check out our How to Participate in NHCS page!

For more information about NHCS, visit our About NHCS webpage!