NAEMT on EMS Health Care Reform
6 EMS Professional  September 2009 News & Technologies care they need and helps prevent ill nesses from turning into emergencies. The database is managed by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and generates national estimates on the number of emergency department visits in all community hos pitals, by region, urban/rural location, teaching status, ownership and trauma designation. It also provides indepth information on acute management of patients for all visits, including why patients were seen in the emergency department, the treatments they received, what happened to them at the end of the visit (admitted to the hospital, discharged home, transferred to another hospital, died in the emer gency room or left against medical advice), the charge for their care and who was billed. The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample contains 26 mil lion records from emergency depart ment visits from approximately 1,000 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released new data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample the largest, allpayer emergency depart ment database in the United States. The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample is designed to help public health experts, policymakers, health care administrators, researchers, journalists and others find the data they need to answer ques tions about care that occurs in U.S. hos pital emergency departments. This data indicates that uninsured persons accounted for nearly onefifth of the 120 million hospitalbased emer gency department visits in 2006. Our health care system has forced too many uninsured, rural and low income Americans to depend on the emergency room for the care they need, said Secretary Sebelius. We cannot wait for reform that gives all Americans the highquality, affordable community hospitals nationwide. This represents 20 percent of all U.S. hospital emergency departments. The database also provides weighted calculations for national estimates of the 120 million ED visits in 2006. AHRQ has a long history of support ing health services research related to emergency medicine, and the richness of these new data will increase our capacity for research and decisionmak ing, said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. The new database will give emergency planners and other pol icymakers the data they need to help improve the quality, safety and effec tiveness of emergency medical care. AHRQ also released its latest Nationwide Inpatient Sample the largest, most powerful database on hospital care in the United States, cov ering all patients, regardless of their type of insurance or whether they were insured. The 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample provides users with an indepth look at why patients were hospitalized, the treatments and procedures they received and what happened to them at discharge. Researchers can use the Nationwide Inpatient Sample to exam ine trend data as far back as 1988. The 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample is based on discharge data from 8 million hospital stays at more than 1,000 com munity hospitals. The two databases, as well as the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database on pedi atric inpatient care, are part of AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), a federalstateindustry part nership for building a standardized, multistate health data system. In addi tion to databases, HCUP includes soft ware tools and statistical reports to inform policymakers, health system leaders, researchers and the public. HCUP databases can be accessed by using the AHRQ online query tool, HCUPnet. Researchers and analysts who need the most indepth data should contact the HCUP Central Distributor about purchasing the 2006 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample and the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample datasets and for fur ther information about their composi tion and technical requirements. EMS New Data Says Uninsured Account for Nearly Onefifth of Emergency Room Visits Sebelius Releases New Nationwide Emergency Department Sample Data By: The Department of Health & Human Services EMS_0909_p06-13:Layout 1 9/4/09 3:22 PM Page 6