Comparison of National Data on Ambulatory Surgery from CDC's National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, Medicare, and the American Hospital Association

• Activity Number: 339
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Government Statistics Section
• Author(s): Margaret Hall*+
• Companies: NCHS/CDC
• Keywords: outpatient surgery ; ambulatory surgery centers ; health care utilization data ; National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey ; National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery

Abstract

In 2010, nationally representative data on ambulatory surgery provided in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers were gathered by the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). The last time similar national data were gathered was in the 2006 National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery, and there is considerable interest in how utilization has changed since that time. This presentation compares NHAMCS and NSAS data to other national sources of data on ambulatory surgery, that is, the Medicare program and the American Hospital Association. Although these other sources do not contain patient level utilization data, they do include data on trends in ambulatory surgery care. This presentation will point out the areas in which the data from these sources generally agree, and the areas in which differing results indicate that additional research is needed to fill in the gaps.