Affiliations: [a] Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Executive
Office Center, Suite 500, 2101 E. Jefferson Street, Rockville, MD 20852,
USA
Abstract: Despite declines in recent years, inpatient care remains the largest component of
national medical expenditures. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
currently sponsors five data collection efforts that can be used to estimate the
utilization of inpatient hospital care in the United States. Through a
comparison of 1996 inpatient utilization estimates, this paper describes
important methodological considerations when using the different data sources
for measuring inpatient use. Our results show that surveys with similar target
populations and methodologies produced similar estimates. In particular,
estimates for the household based surveys (NHIS and MEPS-HC) were comparable
while those for the hospital discharge surveys (NHDS and HCUP-NIS) were
comparable. Hospital discharge surveys produced substantially higher estimates
of total discharges than household surveys, which is partly attributable to
differences in target populations. Also, data from the MCBS suggest that
underreporting may be another explanation for lower estimates from the household
surveys.
