Online Program

Redesigning National Surveys of Long-Term Care Providers

Keywords: redesign, survey integration, questionnaire design, frame development, healthcare, administrative data

Producing current nationally representative information on the spectrum of US long-term care (LTC) providers is challenging in a time of limited resources. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has long-conducted the periodic, in-person National Nursing Home Survey (NNHS) and the National Home and Hospice Care Survey (NHHCS), each one fielded once in the last decade. In 2011, NCHS launched the redesigned, integrated National Study of Long-Term Care Providers (NSLTCP). The NSLTCP will replace NNHS and NHHCS and is designed to: (1) expand the coverage of types of LTC providers; (2) use only administrative data for providers for which they are available (nursing homes, home health agencies, and hospices); (3) use mail, telephone and web surveys for providers for which nationally representative administrative data do not exist (residential care facilities, adult day service centers); and (4) provide current information on LTC providers more frequently than in the past decade. NCHS will use these data in a regularly updated overview report on the supply and use of paid, regulated LTC in the United States. We discuss the redesign goals, features, challenges, and opportunities.