National Hospital Discharge Survey, 1979-2006: Multi-Year Public Use File

The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) collects medical and demographic information annually from a sample of hospital discharge records. Variables include patients' demographic characteristics (sex, age, race, marital status), dates of admission and discharge, source and type of admission, status at discharge, final diagnoses, surgical and nonsurgical procedures, dates of surgeries, and sources of payment. Information on hospital characteristics such as bed size, ownership, and region of the country is also included. This collection includes data for non-newborns for 1979-1989 (Dataset 1), non-newborns for 1990-2006 (Dataset 2) and newborns for 1979-2006 (Dataset 3). The medical information is coded using the INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES, 9TH REVISION, CLINICAL MODIFICATION (ICD-9-CM). In addition, there are several Excel files that contain information needed to calculate relative standard errors (RSEs) and to compute utilization rates based on Census population estimates (POPs).