National Health Care Surveys

Declaration of Readiness for Public Health Reporting

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention  (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics is currently accepting National Health Care Survey data from Eligible Professionals (EP), Eligible Hospitals (EH) and critical Access Hospitals (CAH) to fulfill the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Programs Public Health Objective, Measure 3, submission of data for specialized registry reporting.

To meet this objective EPs, EHs and CAHs are requested to electronically submit data from Certified Electronic Health Record Technology (CEHRT) to the National Center for Health Statistics.

To register intent to submit such data to NCHS, please call 301-458-4321 or email NCHSMUInfo@cdc.gov

NCHS’s Declaration of Readiness is also available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dhcs.htm

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The National Health Care Surveys are designed to answer key questions of interest to health care policy makers, public health professionals, and researchers.   The surveys are nationally representative and provider-based and collect core information which remains stable over time. Consequently, trends in the types of care delivered in each setting can be monitored in an objective and reliable manner and can be examined in relation to characteristics of providers, patients, and clinical management of patients' care.  Examples of recent analyses using National Health Care Surveys data are available at the National Health Care Survey web-site: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/dhcs.htm.

The National Health Care Surveys include:

• The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS). Data are collected on a sample of visits to a nationally representative sample of non-federal, employed, office-based physicians who are primarily engaged in direct patient care. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd.htm)
• The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS).  Data are collected on a national sample of visits to the emergency departments and outpatient departments of a nationally representative sample of noninstitutional general and short-stay hospitals. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd.htm)
• The National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS).  Data on patients and their care are collected from a sample of hospitals on all inpatient discharges and ambulatory encounters in emergency departments and outpatient departments (OPDs), including hospital-based ambulatory surgery.  The NHCS collects patient-level identifiers that allow a patient’s episodes of care to be linked between different 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. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhcs.htm)  A sample of hospitals is currently being recruited for this survey.

National Health Care Surveys and Meaningful Use

The Meaningful Use objectives for both eligible professionals and hospitals include reporting to public health agencies.  Public health reporting gives flexibility in the measures to report.  Eligible professionals (EPs), hospitals (EHs) and critical access hospitals (CAHs) can use submission of data to NCHS for the National Health Care Surveys; EPs to NAMCS and EHs to NHAMCS and NHCS, as one of the measures to fulfill their public health objectives. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a final rule covering three components of the electronic health records meaningful use program. The rule finalizes modifications to Stages 1 and 2; the 2015 edition of electronic health records certification criteria; and Stage 3 of meaningful use.

Participation in the National Health Care Surveys is an option available to meet the public health reporting objectives. The Stage 1 and 2 objectives for eligible professionals and hospitals have been modified to align with Stage 3. Certified EHR Technology is not required for specialized registry reporting 2015-2017. 

To fulfill Meaningful Use Stage 1 objectives EPs need to report to any 1 of the public health and clinical registries in 2015. To fulfill Meaningful Use Stage 2 objectives, EPs must report to any 2 of the public health registry and clinical registries in 2015-2017.  Stage 3 is optional in 2017 and mandatory in 2018. To fulfil meaningful use Stage 3 EPs must report to any 3 registries.

To fulfill Meaningful Use Stage 1 objectives EHs need to report to any 2 of the public health registries in 2015. To fulfill Meaningful Use Stage 2 objectives, EHs must report to any 3 of the public health registries in 2015-2017.  To fulfil meaningful use Stage 3 EHs must report to any 4 registries. Stage 3 begins in 2017 and is mandatory in 2018.

Certified EHR Technology is not required for specialized registry reporting 2015-2017, but EHR technology certified to the 2014 Edition or 2015 Edition may be used.  In the Stage 3 rule, all EPs and EHs and CAHs are required to use technology certified to either the 2014 Edition or 2015 Edition or certification in 2017.

The Implementation Guide for the National Health Care Surveys is available through the HL7 Website.

For further information contact NCHSMUINFO@cdc.gov.