1993 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 1993 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey with complete file documentation, all in ASCII format. The 1993 NHAMCS dataset includes two files, one for emergency department data and another for outpatient department data. These are located in: ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NHAMCS The documentation files for the 1993 NHAMCS dataset are located in: ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/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 (ED1993) without its extension. Do the same for the OPD1993 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 DOC93 instead of ED1993. Size (bytes) File Name File Description Compressed Uncompressed ED1993.EXE NHAMCS Emergency department file 1,037,611 10,685,940 OPD1993.EXE NHAMCS Outpatient department file 848,805 10,095,093 DOC93.EXE NHAMCS documentation files 122,440 375,748 The documentation file (DOC93.EXE) will expand to include the following: DESCRIPT Description of the NHAMCS 52,090 EDFORMAT Format of the emergency department micro-data file 29,838 OPFORMAT Format of the outpatient department micro-data file 29,582 MARGINAL Marginal data 19,126 RSE Relative standard errors 5,471 TERMS Definition of terms used in the NHAMCS 11,713 PRF Patient Record forms - instructions and definitions 30,928 RVC Reason for Visit Classification 82,411 GENCODES List of generic codes and names 43,925 MEDCODES List of drug entry codes and names 63,053 NDC List of National Drug Code Directory drug classes 5,790 QUEST Data user questionnaire 1,821 Total compressed file size (data and documentation) = 2,008,856 Total inflated file size = 21,156,781 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 -