National Health Care Survey

The National Health Care Survey (NHCS) is a group of eight related surveys conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Each collects data from health care providers or establishments (such as hospitals) or their records, rather than from patients, and each is based on a multistage sampling plan that allows the computation of valid national estimates of different aspects of health care utilization. These surveys gather information about patients, caregivers, and institutions, as well as on health care events such as physician office visits, hospitalizations, and surgeries. The data for many of the surveys included in the NHCS are available for public use and may be downloaded from the NHCS Web site.

The four original parts of NHCS were the National ...