Hospital and Physician Capacity (1996, 2006, 2011, and 2012)

<h2>Overview</h2>
<p>The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) has created a publicly available source of data that provides researchers, payers, regulators, and innovators with metrics that quantify temporal and regional patterns of health care spending and utilization in the United States. Using CMS Medicare claims data (mostly for age >64 enrollees), Atlas researchers built cohorts (“denominators”) and numerous measures or events (“numerators”) which were then used to calculate rates either by geography or for patients assigned to specific hospitals. These rates, which are calculated consistently across time and place, provide researchers with opportunities to evaluate spatial and temporal variation/trends. </p>

<p>In addition to developing rates using Medicare claims data, Atlas researchers developed a variety of measures of hospital and physician capacity by geography using data from the American Hospital Association, the CMS Provider of Services files, CMS Cost Reports, the American Medical Association, and the American Osteopathic Association. This entry contains Dartmouth Atlas rates for these capacity measures, all of which use the number of residents of the geographic area as the denominator. Examples include acute care hospital beds, hospital-based registered nurses, hospital-based employees, physicians, primary care physicians, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, pediatricians, and radiologists. Rates are provided at the hospital referral region (HRR) and hospital service area (HSA) levels, and all rates have been adjusted for age and sex. In contrast to other Atlas rates, these capacity measures were not generated every year; hospital capacity measures are available for 1996, 2006, and 2012, while physician capacity measures are available for 1996, 2006, and 2011. </p>

<p> Users downloading data should review the methods sections of the related publications for context as well as for information about any temporal changes in methods. All reports in the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care series are available from the National Library of Medicine <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK584737/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK584737/</a><p>

<p> Note that for the general Dartmouth Atlas rate datasets, which span multiple decades, the author list includes all Dartmouth staff (programmers, analysts, supervisors, etc.) involved in generating all types of Atlas rates across all years. We do not attempt to assign individuals to specific datasets or years. <p>