National Hospital Discharge Survey, 1988

The 1988 National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), which is part of a continuing sample of hospital discharge records, provides medical and demographic information used to calculate statistics on hospital utilization. This survey consists of data abstracted from the face sheets of medical records for sampled inpatients discharged from a national sample of nonfederal short-stay hospitals. The variables include information on the patient's demographic characteristics (sex, age, date of birth, race, marital status), dates of admission and discharge, status at discharge, diagnoses, procedures performed, and source of payment. Information on hospital characteristics, such as bedsize, ownership, and region of the country, is also included.