RWJF Releases the Health Care Consumer Confidence Index
The new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Care Consumer Confidence Index (RWJF Index) was released on June 18. The index will be updated the third week of each month.
The Index provides an indicator of the health access concerns of the American people. Respondents are asked about recent health care barriers as well as concerns for the future, such as worries about losing insurance coverage or being able to pay for health care expenses. These two aspects can be tracked independently. This Index is expected to provide a unique perspective on consumer sentiment as federal health reform discussion/legislation evolves this year.
The Index is composed of a set of health care questions, including some regarding insurance coverage, in the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center’s Surveys of Consumers. For more than 50 years, data from these surveys have proven to be representative and accurate indicators for understanding and forecasting changes in the national economy. Data from spring 2009 was used to develop the RWJF Index and establish a baseline from which to gauge changes in consumer confidence in health care over time. The State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) developed the questions and index calculations.
The RWJF Index, along with detailed methodology and results, is available at www.rwjf.org/healthreform/product.jsp?id=44528.
NCHS Releases New Data on Home and Hospice Care
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released the redesigned 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey (NHHCS) Public-Use Files and Documentation. The NHHCS, conducted seven times starting in the 1990s, is a nationally representative sample survey of home health and hospice agencies. The 2007 NHHCS included substantially expanded content describing quality, safety, outcomes, and end-of-life care. Data were collected from about 9,416 current home health patients and hospice discharges and 1,036 agencies.
The first ever National Home Health Aide Survey was conducted as a supplement to the 2007 NHHCS. This nationally representative telephone-based survey was designed to generate a better understanding of factors affecting the current shortage of direct care workers. Home health aides were questioned about many aspects of their employment including: job satisfaction, length of employment and plans to leave employment, training, relationships with supervisors, general work environment, pay, benefits, and safety. Data are available for analysis from telephone interviews with 3,377 home health aides.
Public use files, questionnaires, and documentation for the National Home and Hospice Care Survey and the National Home Health Aide Survey may be downloaded at: www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhhcs.htm.
HCUP Releases the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS)
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is pleased to announce the release of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) featuring 2007 data. The NIS is the largest all-payer inpatient care database in the United States and is updated annually. It is available from 1988 to 2007, allowing analysis of trends over time.
The NIS is nationally representative of all short-term, non-federal hospitals in the United States. It approximates a 20 percent stratified sample of hospitals in the United States and is drawn from the HCUP State Inpatient Databases (SID) which include 90 percent of all discharges in the United States. The NIS includes all patients from each sampled hospital, regardless of payer—including persons covered by Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and the uninsured.
The data can be weighted to produce national estimates, allowing researchers and policymakers to use the NIS to identify, track, and analyze national trends in health care utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes. The vast size of the NIS enables analyses of infrequent conditions, such as rare cancers; uncommon treatments, such as organ transplantation; and special patient populations, like the uninsured. Its size also allows for the study of topics at both national and regional levels. In addition, NIS data are standardized across years to facilitate ease of use.
The 2007 NIS contains data from more than 8 million hospital stays. It encompasses all discharge data from more than 1,000 hospitals in 40 states. For most hospitals, the NIS includes identifiers that allow linkages to the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey Database and county identifiers that permit linkages to the Area Resource File (ARF) from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The NIS contains clinical and resource use information included in a typical discharge abstract, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and hospitals (as required by data sources).
As part of the HCUP database family, the NIS is considered by health services researchers to be one of the most reliable and affordable databases for studying important health care topics.
The 2007 NIS can be purchased through the HCUP Central Distributor. More information about the NIS and other HCUP products can be found on the HCUP-US Web site.
AHRQ Releases a New Statistical Brief on Hospitalizations for Potentially Preventable Diseases
Hospital admissions of Americans from the poorest communities for asthma and diabetes were 87 percent and 77 percent higher, respectively, than admissions for patients from wealthier areas for the same diseases, according to the latest report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Asthma and diabetes are potentially preventable conditions because good outpatient care can help to prevent the need for hospitalization. Despite national efforts to eliminate health care disparities, low-income Americans continue to have higher hospital admission rates for asthma and many other conditions.
AHRQ's analysis found that compared to Americans from wealthier areas:
- Patients from the poorest communities were more likely to be hospitalized for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (69 percent higher); congestive heart failure (51 percent higher); skin infections (49 percent higher); and dehydration (38 percent higher).
- In addition, patients from the poorest communities were more likely to be admitted for severe blood infection, stroke, and depression.
- Furthermore, hospitalized Americans from the poorest communities were 80 percent more likely to receive hemodialysis for kidney failure, and they were more likely to undergo procedures often done on an outpatient basis, such as eye and ear procedures (81 percent more likely). Infants from poor areas were 47 percent more likely to be vaccinated for hepatitis B.
These findings are based on data from Hospital Stays among People Living in the Poorest Communities, 2006 (HCUP Statistical Brief #73). The report uses statistics from the 2006 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a database of hospital inpatient stays that is nationally representative of inpatient stays in all short-term, non-federal hospitals. The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent of all discharges in the United States and include all patients, regardless of insurance type, as well as the uninsured.
