Key points
- The National Health Care Surveys are designed to answer key questions of interest to healthcare policy makers, providers, and researchers.
- Questions can be added to the surveys to cover new topics of interest.
Overview
In the past, organizations have sponsored entire health care surveys, as well as questions or modules on important health topics.
Questions can be added to collect information at one or more of these levels:
- Healthcare provider
- Facility
- Patient visit or encounter
Interested in sponsoring survey content?
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) has conducted sponsored supplemental data collections on many topics over its history.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
Since 2016, CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention has sponsored the NAMCS Sexually Transmitted Diseases Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (STD PrEP) supplement.
Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention
From 2015 through 2018, CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities has sponsored the NAMCS Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention supplement.
National Electronic Health Records Survey
The Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has sponsored the National Electronic Health Records Survey since 2012.
National Hospital Care Survey
Sponsored projects have supported additional analysis of National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) data.
Enhanced links to CMS and NDI data
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (PCORTF) sponsored projects to link NHCS with data from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) and the National Death Index (NDI) from 2015 through 2017. PCORTF's sponsorship was facilitated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Study of opioids using advanced data science methods
In 2018, PCORTF sponsored a project to study hospitals visits involving opioids. Experts applied advanced data science methods to NHCS data to learn more about hospital visits that involved opioids. Additional PCORTF projects in later years have funded further study of these visits. This work has included deeper analysis of data from visits involving co-occurring health conditions and visits involving stimulant use.
National Post-acute and Long-term Care Study
The National Post-acute and Long-term Care Study (NPALS) has worked with partners to add questions on topics of interest to existing data collections. NPALS has also partnered on standalone data collections.
Long-term care ombudsmen
In 2020 and 2022, the Administration for Community Living (ACL) sponsored questions about long-term care ombudsmen in the NPALS Residential Care Community Survey.
Direct care workers
In 2023, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation partnered with NPALS to collect data from direct care workers. The pilot study surveyed direct care workers in adult day services centers, residential care communities, and nursing homes.