Local Data Collection Strategies for Safety Net Assessment: Table 4

You Are Here: AHRQ Home > Data & Surveys > Safety Net Monitoring > Tools for Monitoring the Health Care Safety Net > Local Data Collection Strategies for Safety Net Assessment

Table 4. Sources of Health Care Provider Information

Source	Sponsor	Description
National Health Care Survey	National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhcs.htm	Conducted periodically since 1960s or 70s (varies by component). Family of health facility surveys covering hospital inpatient and ambulatory care, nursing homes, home health and hospice services and other entities. Component surveys vary in content but generally include facility characteristics such as staffing and utilization.
Community Tracking Study-Physician Survey	Center for Studying Health Systems Change, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation http://www.hschange.com/index.cgi?data=01	Telephone survey covering the same communities and time intervals as the Community Tracking Study—Household Survey (Table 2). Includes 12,000 non-Federal, patient-care physicians (20 hours per week or more). Information on physician demographics, practice setting, specialty, extent managed care contracting, payer mix and charity care, satisfaction, and other physician and practice characteristics.
Ambulatory Care Provider Survey	United Hospital Fund of New York (Contact the author of this chapter for more information about this survey)	Mail survey of hospital outpatient and freestanding ambulatory care clinics in New York City in 1996, 1997 and 1999. Information on scope of medical and enabling services, visits by service, hours, staffing, revenue sources and payer mix, sliding fee policies, and other facility characteristics.
Community Health Center Uniform Data System	Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services http://www.bphc.hrsa.gov/uds	Obtains data from clinics supported by the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Provides data on health centers and their users, including health center and user characteristics, financing and revenues, encounters, and staffing.
Physician Masterfile	American Medical Association http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2673.html	Continuously updated Information on graduates of allopathic medical schools and foreign-trained physicians entering practice in the United States. Physician name, medical school, year of graduation, date and place of birth, sex, specialty, practice characteristics and contact information.
Annual Hospital Survey	American Hospital Association	Annual survey of hospitals conducted since 1946. Information on ownership structure, scope of facilities and services, community orientation, number of beds, utilization and staffing. Information on charity care and most financial data are not publicly released.
Area Resource File	Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/data/arf.htm	Annual county-specific health resources data system. Information on health facilities, health professionals, measures of resource scarcity, health status, economic activity, health training programs, and socioeconomic and environmental characteristics, as well as geographic codes. Includes over 7,000 variables from 50 different public and private data sources.

Return to Document