What's New with HCFO - 07/13/2007 (Plain Text Version)In this issue: New Data for Researchers
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) announces the release of two new reports highlighting data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). “Ambulatory Medical Care Utilization Estimates for 2005” describes visits to physician offices, hospital outpatient departments, and emergency departments in the United States. The report notes that patients made an estimated 1.2 billion visits to these settings in 2005, a rate of 4.0 visits per person annually. About 29.4 percent of all ambulatory care visits were for chronic diseases and 25.2 percent were for preventive care, including check-ups, prenatal care, and post-surgical care. Ambulatory care providers prescribed or administered 2.4 billion medications at these visits. Antidepressants were the leading therapeutic class prescribed, accounting for 5 out of every 100 prescriptions.“National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2005 Emergency Department Summary” highlights the trends in increasing emergency department use. As the report states, emergency visits are at an all-time high of 115 million in 2005 — an increase of 5 million visits in one year. From 1995 through 2005, the number of emergency department visits increased from 96.5 million to 115.3 million visits annually. This represents an average increase of more than 1.7 million visits per year. During this same period, the number of hospital emergency departments decreased from 6,291 to 3,890, therefore nearly doubling the annual number of visits per emergency department from 15,882 in 1995 to 29,646 in 2005. Visit rates were the highest for Medicaid recipients (88/100), followed by Medicare beneficiaries (51/100) and uninsured (46/100).
Readers may access these reports and the public use data files on which they are based at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/ahcd/whatsnew.htm.
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