In the battle against the opioid epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking data from hospitals across the U.S.
Specifically, the National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS), conducted by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), is seeking a nationally representative sample of hospitals to submit all data on patients seen in inpatient, outpatient, and emergency departments. Data elements collected include patient demographic information, diagnoses, procedures, medications, laboratory tests and results, and personally identifiable information (PII).
Why PII? The CDC says, the personal information “uniquely positions the NHCS to study opioid-involved health outcomes and hospital care utilization. Repeat encounters and post-discharge rates for opioid-involved hospital encounters can be analyzed and calculated. Additionally, clinical notes collected via electronic health records may potentially serve as a rich information source on specific drugs involved in the emergency department visit, the nature of misuse or poisoning, and other risk factors for opioid-involved hospital encounters.”
For more information,
please visit here to review project materials and publications. For questions, contact Margaret Noonan, Team Lead of the Hospital Care Team, NCHS, at
mnoonan2@cdc.gov.