1996 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Data File and File Documentation WARNING - DATA USE RESTRICTIONS! Read Carefully before Using The Public Health Service Act (Section 308 (d)) provides that the data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may be used only for the purpose of health statistical reporting and analysis. Any effort to determine the identity of any reported case is prohibited by this law. NCHS does all it can to assure that the identity of data subjects cannot be disclosed. All direct identifiers, as well as any characteristics that might lead to identification, are omitted from the dataset. Any intentional identification or disclosure of a person or establishment violates the assurances of confidentiality given to the providers of the information. Therefore, users will: 1. Use the data in this dataset for statistical reporting and analysis only. 2. Make no use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently and advise the Director, NCHS, of any such discovery. 3. Not link this dataset with individually identifiable data from other NCHS or non-NCHS datasets. By using these data, you signify your agreement to comply with the above-stated statutorily based requirements. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Please continue to next page. - 1 - The files listed below comprise the 1996 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey with complete file documentation, all in ASCII format. The 1996 NHAMCS dataset includes two files, one for emergency department data and another for outpatient department data. These are located in: /public/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NHAMCS The documentation files for the 1996 NHAMCS dataset are located in: /public/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/NHAMCS For ease of transmission, these files have been converted into a self- extracting compressed format. To load and expand the NHAMCS data files, do the following: first, copy the compressed file onto your hard drive into an appropriate subdirectory (for example, NHAMCS). Then go to the DOS prompt in that subdirectory and type the name of the file (ED1996) without its extension. Do the same for the OPD1996 file. The twelve documentation files listed below have been compressed into a single self-extracting file. To load and expand them, follow the steps above, using the file name DOC96 instead of ED1996. Size (bytes) File Name File Description Compressed Uncompressed ED1996.EXE NHAMCS Emergency department file 999,116 9,352,154 OPD1996.EXE NHAMCS Outpatient department file 1,152,468 13,353,088 DOC96.EXE NHAMCS documentation files 137,317 438,849 The documentation file (DOC96.EXE) will expand to include the following: DESCRIPT Description of the NHAMCS 56,145 EDFORMAT Format of the emergency department micro-data file 48,487 OPFORMAT Format of the outpatient department micro-data file 47,378 MARGINAL Marginal data 19,048 RSE Relative standard errors 5,656 TERMS Definition of terms used in the NHAMCS 12,443 PRF Patient Record forms - instructions and definitions 40,285 RVC Reason for Visit Classification 82,405 GENCODES List of generic codes and names 46,638 MEDCODES List of drug entry codes and names 71,800 NDC List of National Drug Code Directory drug classes 6,743 QUEST Data user questionnaire 1,821 Total compressed file size (data and documentation) = 2,288,901 Total inflated file size = 23,144,091 CAUTION - Because the NHAMCS is a sample survey, the application of weights to the sample data is REQUIRED to produce national estimates of outpatient and emergency department visits, as well as to accurately assess the sampling error of statistics based on the survey data. Please refer to the appropriate documentation files (DESCRIPT, RSE) for informa- tion on how to apply the weights and to obtain relative standard errors of national estimates. Please continue to next page. - 2 - For questions, suggestions, or comments concerning NHAMCS data, please contact the Ambulatory Care Statistics Branch at (301) 436-7132. These and other survey data are also available on CD-ROM and public use data tape, as well as in published summaries. For additional information on NCHS data products, contact the: Data Dissemination Branch, NCHS 3311 Toledo Road Hyattsville, MD 20782 Tel: (301)458-4636 E-mail: nchsquery@nch10a.em.cdc.gov Internet: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchs/home.htm - 3 -