Data Source: Indian Health Service (IHS)

2010 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports

The National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) is a comprehensive national overview of quality of health care in the United States. It is organized around four dimensions of quality of care: effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, and patient centeredness.

Data Source: Indian Health Service (IHS)

IHS National Data Warehouse (NDW)

Sponsor

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service (IHS).

Description

The NDW is the national repository for all IHS health care data and includes information on patient registration and visit encounters. Data are derived from various government (mostly the Resource Patient Management System or "RPMS") and commercial health care information systems. These are largely transaction-based systems used to support patient care. The NDW is an upgraded version of the National Patient Information Reporting System (NPIRS).

Primary Content

Registration records and all encounter records (dated October 1, 2000, to the present) are included in the NDW. Registration tables contain patient information, including name, demographic data, medical chart data, aliases, and insurance eligibility data. Encounter tables contain encounter information, including location of treatment, clinic, provider, medications, and diagnosis codes.

Population Targeted

NPIRS collects data on approximately 1.5 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who belong to 565 federally recognized tribes in 35 States.

Demographic Data

Age, gender, and American Indian and Alaska Native status.

Years Collected

1997 to present.

Schedule

Annual.

Geographic Estimates

National IHS service area estimates are available for the following IHS regions: Aberdeen, Alaska, Albuquerque, Bemidji, Billings, Nashville, Navajo, Oklahoma, Phoenix, and Tucson (excluding the Portland and California service areas).

Notes

Since no IHS inpatient facilities are located in either the Portland or California service areas, hospitalizations from these regions are not present in the data; the denominator is correspondingly reduced.

Contact Information

Agency home page: http://www.ihs.gov.

Data system home page: http://www.ihs.gov/NDW/.

Reference

Berger L, Garrett Sims LTJ. Identifying Polypharmacy among older adults using IHS National Data Warehouse data. IHS Prim Care Provid 2010 Oct;35(10).

Return to Contents

Current as of February 2011
Internet Citation: Data Source: Indian Health Service (IHS): 2010 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports. February 2011. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/nhqrdr/nhqrdr10/datasources/ihs.html