The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is to assess the health of the population through the creation of a dataset that contains information on health care utilization as well as the demographic characteristics, medical conditions, and treatment of patients who use hospitals for inpatient and ambulatory medical care in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), requests a three-year approval for a revision to continue the National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) (OMB No. 0920-0212, expires 12/31/2024). Although there are no new questions added to the data collection survey, the COVID-19 questions from the Annual Hospital Interview (AHI) have been removed. Despite an increase in sample size, the burden hours have decreased as fewer hospitals now need to complete the one-time initial intake questionnaire (see section 12 for more information about these changes). The use of the resulting data is to provide government, professional, scientific, academic, and commercial institutions, and private research organizations, as well as private citizens with information that can be used to monitor public health and to investigate research questions about health care utilization and delivery over time. Inpatient and ambulatory data will be collected from a sample of 601 hospitals via Uniform Billing (UB)-04 administrative claims or electronic health record (EHR) data. Additionally, hospital-level characteristics for all sampled hospitals are gathered through an Annual Hospital Interview. The target subpopulation of the NHCS is inpatient discharges, and patient visits made to Emergency Departments (EDs) and Outpatient Departments (OPDs) of non-Federal, non-institutional hospitals with six or more beds staffed for inpatient use in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Findings will be released in NCHS reports, dashboards, journal articles, and research papers as well as released to researchers for analysis.
US Code:
42 USC 242k
Name of Law: Public Health Service Act
The currently approved burden is 7,184 hours, and the proposed burden for the NHCS is 5,826 hours per data collection year. Because additional sample hospitals have been recruited for NHCS since the last approval request, fewer hospitals still need the initial two steps of recruitment. The result is a reduction of the annualized number of hospitals receiving the Intake Questionnaire (13 hours) and Recruitment Survey Presentation (106 hours). Additionally, with the inclusion of data submitted by ACEP the number of hours decreased for submission of UB-04 (624 hours). The removal of the COVID-19 questions also reduced the length of the Annual Hospital Interview (615 hours). This results in a net decrease of 1,358 burden hours.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Form 0920-0212 NHCS Initial Hospital Intake Questionnaire
Att E - NHCS Overview Flyer.pdf
Att T - NHCS Confidentiality Letter.docx
Att N - EHR Variable List.xlsx
Att A - Legislative Authority to Collect Data on Hospital Utilization.rtf
Att P_Initial Hospital Intake Questionnaire