This public use file is one in a series of event-level public use files drawn from the 1997 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component (HC) and the Medical Provider Component (MPC). Released as an ASCII file with SAS, SPSS, and STATA programming statements and in SAS transport format, the Hospital Inpatient Stays File provides detailed information on hospital inpatient stays. Data are gathered from a nationally representative sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States and can be used to make estimates of inpatient hospital stay utilization and expenditures for calendar year 1997. Each record represents one, household-reported, inpatient hospital stay reported during the 1997 portion of round 3, and rounds 4 and 5 for Panel 1, as well as rounds 1, 2 and the 1997 portion of round 3 for Panel 2 of the survey.
The Hospital Inpatient Stays Public Use Data File consists of 2 event-level data files. File 1 contains characteristics associated with the hospital inpatient stay event such as: the date of the hospital inpatient stay, reason for the stay, types of services received, condition(s) and procedure(s) associated with the hospital inpatient stay, whether or not medicines were prescribed, and imputed expenditure data. File 2 contains pre-imputed and unimputed expenditure data.
For more information, see MEPS HC-029: 1997 MEPS HC Survey Data.