417 – Contributed Oral Poster Presentations: Section on Government Statistics
Electronic Medical Record Systems Nonresponse Bias Analysis for 2011 NAMCS Mail Survey
Bill Cai
National Center for Health Statistics
Iris Shimizu
National Center for Health Statistics
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) is an annual survey of officebased physicians that gathers information about physicians and their practices through inperson interviews. A mail survey was conducted in 2011 on supplemental physician samples to allow for state-level estimates regarding physicians’ use of electronic medical record/electronic health records (EMR/EHR). Each physician in the mail survey was sent questionnaires at two week intervals and phone calls were attempted with nonrespondents after the third mailing for a total of four data collection waves. Because weighted and unweighted response rates for 2011 were only 61 and 64 percent, respectively, the potential for non-response bias will be investigated. Evaluation of the effect of nonresponse is difficult for a complex survey like NAMCS EMR. The method of response rate comparison across subgroup and the method of sample and frame data comparison were used to provide a basic description of response characteristics.
