What's New?

New Releases:

The 1993 and 1994 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use data files have been re-released and are now available for downloading. (1993 and 1994 NAMCS public use files had been re-released previously.) Please be sure to download the newly revised supplemental documentation file that discusses important changes made to the 1993 and 1994 files and discusses guidelines for variance estimation with SUDAAN, SAS, SPSS, and Stata. SAS input statements, variable labels and value labels are also available for these years.

A new technical paper, Using Ultimate Cluster Models with NAMCS and NHAMCS Public Use Files, is available for downloading that discusses variance estimation with NAMCS and NHAMCS data. Topics include configuring data files prior to 2002 for variance estimation based on 1-stage sampling models, such as those used in SAS proc surveymeans, Stata, SPSS, and the SUDAAN with-replacement option, and how to handle instances of single-case strata in the data. Click here to view/download 34 KB.

Notice to SUDAAN users: The 2002 NAMCS public use file has been modified slightly to resolve a problem found when running SUDAAN version 8.0.2 and higher. This problem only appears when using the WOR (without replacement) design option with multi-level design variables and may cause the program to abort. For those using the SUDAAN WR (with replacement) option or other analytic software packages using an ultimate cluster model for variance estimation (for example, SAS, Stata, and SPSS), there should be no problem using the original version of the 2002 NAMCS public use file, so you do not need to replace your file with this new release.

A list of data items from the 1973-2002 NAMCS and the 1992-2002 NHAMCS is now available. 

The 2002 NAMCS CD-Rom with SETS retrieval software is now available! 

New Publications:

Ambulatory Care Visits to Physician Offices, Hospital Outpatient Departments, and Emergency Departments: United States, 1999-2000.  
View/download PDF 4.3 MB

National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2002 Summary 
View/download PDF 1.8 MB

Characteristics of Emergency Departments Serving High Volumes of Safety Net Patients: United States, 2000. 
View/download PDF 4.1 MB

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2002 Outpatient Department Summary. 
View/download PDF 1.6 MB

Previous What's New Items

ACSB Data in the News
A recent CDC/NCHS fact sheet highlighted NAMCS and NHAMCS data:

Ambulatory Care Visits to Physician Offices, Hospital Outpatient Departments, and Emergency Departments: United States, 1999-2000.  (September 23, 2004)

A recent CDC/NCHS fact sheet highlighted NAMCS data:

New Study Shows Critical Role for Primary Care Specialists (August 26, 2004)

A recent CDC/NCHS fact sheet highlighted NHAMCS data:

New Report Studies Emergency Departments That Serve High Volumes of "Safety Net" Patients (May 21, 2004)

The ACSB listserv is now available.
Here’s a new way to share information about the NAMCS and NHAMCS...Subscribe to the Ambulatory Care Statistics listserv: