United States Department of Veterans Affairs
United States Department of Veterans Affairs

seattle epidemiologic research and information center

Data Source Categories

  1. Department of Veteran Affairs
  2. National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  4. Health Care Financing Administration

Department of Veterans Affairs

Database Description and Content Information
VISTA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) This set of data files, formerly known as DHCP, contains diagnostic, clinical, laboratory, pharmacy, and administrative information on veterans and serves an important role as an information system for clinical and administrative VA purposes. VISTA is not national, thus a limitation for investigative purposes is that most hospital's VISTA will require individual contact with programming requirements in order to download and extract the data of interest for specific projects.
VIREC (Veterans Affairs Information Resource Center) The VIREC is funded by and supports the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Service as a resource center devoted to:  (a) informing the health services research community on the use and usefulness of VA and select other databases and (b) representing and advocating for the information needs of health services researchers within the HSR&D Service and on behalf of HSR&D Service in other communities and structures of the VA. 
Patient Treatment File (PTF) This file on inpatients includes discharges by fiscal year, including VA, non-VA and extended care. Variables include patient descriptors, hospital, bed section, surgical procedures and diagnoses.
Beneficiary Identification and Records Locator System (BIRLS) This database is a complete record of all veterans who have died and whose survivors have applied for a death benefit from VA. This file provides useful information concerning the survival of veterans. It is estimated to be between 90-95% complete, since not all survivors apply for the veterans death benefit, however this compares favorably to the National Death Index.
Outpatient Clinic (OPC) This file covers patients attending outpatient clinics and includes variables on visits, station, and CPT/procedure codes. Beginning in 10/96 diagnostic codes were included.
Pharmacy Database This file documents pharmaceutical agents prescribed and filled and includes variables on Inpatient and outpatient status, drug name, type, dosage, and mode of administration. This information is archived after 2 years.
Laboratory Database This file contains serial data on laboratory tests by category, patient ID, and result.
Consumer Health Information Performance Set (NorCHIPS) This database was developed by VISN #20, and represents a complete ³mirror² of VISTA data. It is accessible for processing with conventional database management software and it links various sources of exposure and outcome information of interest to epidemiologists, including diagnoses, laboratory test results, medication information, and other data regularly entered into VISTA.

National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention www.cdc.gov

Database Description and Content Information
Redesigned National Health Interview Survey This survey is the principal source of information on health, illness and disability status of non-institutionalized individuals in the US. The redesigned version has a family core questionnaire and one adult sample. Special topics each year will differ. Veteran questions include period of service. The core data questions collected annually include demographic, socioeconomic, health insurance status, utilization, and access to care questions. Field-testing is now underway.
N-Hanes I Follow-up Questionnaire Military status was obtained in initial N-Hanes I. No further veteran questions were included in the follow-up survey on this cohort. This database provides a lifetime picture of care.
N Hanes II Mortality Follow-up This survey of 2,776 individuals includes questions on veteran status and era. Mortality follow-up is available on those who were > 30 years at study enrollment. 
N Hanes IV This survey is nearing design completion. It will include questions related to veterans though oversampling of veterans is not possible. This survey also includes the core of the NHIS.
National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) Provides data on the use of diagnoses, surgical procedures, and characteristics of inpatients; and on size, location, and ownership of hospitals. This survey now excludes VA and military hospitals and is based on data abstracted from a sample of approximately 235,000 records from a sample of 542 hospitals. It has been conducted annually since 1965. A strata for veteran discharges is proposed as one of the early Seattle ERIC projects.
National Nursing Home Survey This survey provides data on nursing homes and their services, staffs, and financial characteristics and on residents¹ personal and health characteristics. It is based on self ­administered questions, interviews with administrators and staff from a sample of about 1,2000 facilities. This survey has been conducted periodically since 1963, most recently in 1985.
National Nursing Home Survey Follow-Up This survey provides data on subjects¹ vital statistics, living arrangements, nursing home stays, hospital stays, and sources of payment for stays. The data collection for Wave I was conducted between August and December of 1987. The study population consisted of approximately 6,600 subjects. The data for Wave II was conducted from July to November 1988, with approximately 4,000 eligible subjects. Wave III was conducted from February to April 1990, involving approximately 3,000 subjects. All waves used a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview system.
Longitudinal Study on Aging The original group in this survey is a cohort of HIS respondents age > 70. A second cohort is now being established for telephone follow-up. Some of the variables included are period of service, demographic health status, and activities of daily living questions. This data was collected in 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990.
Home and Hospice Care Survey This survey was begun in 1992 and includes data on 1,510 agencies providing home health and hospice care.
National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics Vital statistics data collected is collected in each of the 50 states and includes death certificates. The veteran identifier is Question #9 ³Was decedent ever US armed forces?
National Mortality Followback Survey This survey includes data on socioeconomic characteristics of deceased persons, use of and payment for hospitals and institutional care during the last year of life, and factors relating to health status, such as smoking habits. It is based on a questionnaire sent to the person who provided the information for the death certificate. If the death occurred in a hospital or institution, a questionnaire is also sent to the facility. The 1986 survey was a national sample of approximately one-percent of the U.S. resident deaths of persons 25 years of age and over.
Behavioral Risk Factor Survey This survey was established in 1984 to determine the prevalence of behaviors relevant to health promotion and disease prevention by state and nationally. Core and supplemental questions are obtained via computer assisted telephone surveys. State specific questions will also be included.

Agency for Healthcare research and Quality and the National Institutes of Health

Database Description and Content Information
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Conducted annually from 1974 through 1981, then also in 1985, and annually since 1989. Provides data on visits to physicians, including patients¹ symptoms and physicians¹ diagnoses. This survey is based on a sample of 50,000 visits to a sample of approximately 2,500 physicians in office-based private practice. The sample size was expanded to 5,000 physicians in 1985. Data collected from 1980 forward includes the number and names of specific drugs prescribed in office-based practice.
National Medical Expenditures Survey This survey was last completed in 1987 with no VA sampling performed. A new version is now under consideration to examine health care cost.
Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project (HCUP) The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a Federal-State-industry partnership to build a standardized, multi-State health data system. HCUP is maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ, formerly the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research). AHRQ has taken the lead in developing HCUP databases, Web-based products, and software tools and making them available for restricted access public release

Health Care Financing Administration

Database Description and Content Information
Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey  A. PRO West, the private non-profit health care quality improvement organization in Seattle that holds the Medicare peer review organization (PRO) contracts for Washington, Alaska and Idaho will work with the Seattle ERIC initially on regional inpatient and outpatient issues regarding disease prevalence, utilization. B. After pilot projects are conducted in the NW region, national data files will be utilized.

 

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