Utilization and expenditures for ambulatory medical care by people hospitalized: United States, 1980.

The National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey was conducted throughout 1980 to collect information on health, access to and use of medical services, associated charges and sources of payment, and health insurance coverage. The survey was based on a probability sample of about 6,600 households and 17,123 people representative of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States. This report is one of a series of descriptive reports based on data from the National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey. It characterizes the population by hospital utilization and certain sociodemographic and health variables, and shows how hospitalization effects the use and cost of ambulatory medical care. The following are some of the highlights of the report. Almost everyone was covered by some form of health insurance at some time during 1980. Only 7.6 percent were not covered at all, and 10 percent had insurance only part of the year. The proportion not covered at all varied according to the number of times hospitalized, ranging from 8.2 percent for people not hospitalized during the year to 1.8 percent for people hospitalized three or more times. People with one or more hospital stays during 1980 had a physician visit rate greater than three times that for people not hospitalized. Similarly, the expenditures for ambulatory medical care for people experiencing hospitalizations was almost nine times that for people were not hospitalized during the year. The rate of physician visits is much larger immediately prior to hospital admission or immediately after discharge than it is at other times. About 40 percent of all physician visits during the year occurred within a month before admission and after discharge. within a month before admission and after discharge.

Graduate follow-up in the US Air Force family practice residency programs.

Between June 30, 1973, and June 30, 1982, 216 family physicians completed residency training in family practice residencies sponsored by the US Air Force. The primary purpose of this study was to measure the adequacy of the graduates' residency training program. One hundred seventy-nine (83 percent) of the graduates responded to an extensive eight-page survey. The study assessed all Air Force program graduates as a whole as well as each program separately. Seventy-four percent of the respondents are still in the Air Force. All but one are board certified, and 19 have been recertified. Of the 179 respondents, 37.0 percent are involved in teaching medical students of family practice residents, only 5.0 percent are dissatisfied with their present hospital privileges, 43.5 percent felt that their residency training was superior to that provided by civilian family practice residency, 53.7 percent felt the training was equal, and 2.8 percent felt the training was inferior. Practice satisfaction and continuing medical education needs were also addressed in the study.

Sample design and estimation procedures for a national health examination survey of children.

The Health Examination Survey is one of the major survey programs employed by the National Center for Health Statistics to obtain information about the health status of the U.S. population. It is a part of the National Health Survey, authorized in 1956 by the 84th Congress as a continuing Public Health Service activity. The National Health Survey employs three different survey programs to accomplish its objectives. One of these is the Health Interview Survey in which persons are asked to give in-formation related to their health or to the health of other household members. The second program, Health Resources, obtains health data and health resource and utilization information through surveys of hospitals, nursing homes, and other resident institutions and through the entire range of personnel in the health occupations. The third major program is the Health Examination Survey (HES), The Health Examination Survey collects data from samples of the civilian, noninstitutional population of the United States and, by means of medical and dental examinations and various tests and measurements, undertakes to characterize the population under study. This is the most accurate way to obtain diagnostic data on the prevalence of certain medically defined illnesses. It is the only way to obtain information on unrecognized and undiagnosed conditions-in some cases, even nonsymptomatic conditions. It is also the only way presently available to obtain distributions of the population by a variety of physical, physiological, and psychological measurements. Although the sample is designed primarily to estimate the prevalence of specified health and health-related conditions in the population, the design also makes possible the study of relationships of the examination findings to one another and to certain demographic and socioeconomic factors.