Methodology Used for Measuring Use of Electronic Medical Records in Physician Practices in 2008 and 2009 NAMCS

• Activity Number: 191
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 2, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Iris Shimizu*+
• Companies: National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: Survey methods ; Multi-mode ; Non-response ; Physician survey

Abstract

Beginning in 2008, the National Center for Health Statistics supplemented the core personal interview survey of physicians in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) with a mail survey to measure use of electronic medical records (EMR) in non-Federal office based physician practices. In 2008, subsamples of the non-respondents to the mail survey were included in follow-up telephone or personal interview surveys. Preliminary estimates based only on the mail survey and final estimates based on combined data from both the mail and interview surveys were produced. This paper discusses the survey design and methods for the EMR estimates and some changes made after 2008.