American Hospital Association Annual Survey Database

Hello Everyone,
We are fortunate to be able to offer the American Hospital Association Annual Survey Database to the Boston College Community.
This database contains comprehensive hospital data from 6,500 hospitals surveyed about their operations. Topics include: demographics, organizational structure, facilities and services, utilization data, community orientation indicators, physician arrangements, managed care relationships and expenses.

The wealth of data will be of use to many subject areas besides the health care fields.
Social work, sociology, and education are interested in how health care affects people in the community and in the quality of their lives.
Psychologists would want to know what services are available in the psychiatric care units, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis.
The data can be used to track health care trends and inform health care policy proposals. The economic, financial and business aspects of health care are apparent. Communications and the media cover all of these aspects of health care data. The uses of this date are limitless.

Both Barbara Mento and ITS Research Services are available for assistance.
CSON Faculty, Students, and Staff please contact the CSON Nursing Research Office for further directions.
It would be beneficial to know if the AHA ASD data is used in any faculty or graduate student research or publications.
Thank you, Wanda and Barbara
***Please see access procedures below.


AHA Annual Survey Database™ Fiscal Year 2009AHA Annual Survey DatabaseTM is an invaluable reference for market research reports and health care industry analysis on hospitals. Identify important health care trends with comprehensive hospital survey data including more than 800 data fields on 6,500 hospitals surveyed about their FY 2009 operations. New facility and service categories are added each year.
You'll find healthcare information on:
• Demographics
• Organizational structure
• Facilities and services
• Utilization data
• Community orientation indicators
• Physician arrangements
• Managed care relationships
• Expenses
• Staffing
Using this database, you can:
• Extract structure and organizational information to compare and benchmark selected hospitals.
• Identify which services are delivered by a hospital or through another organization in the area.
• Evaluate opportunities for new service lines.
• Run time series analyses and develop forecasts with historical data sets since 1980.
• Merge with data from other sources for customized statistics and research.
• Study a hospital's self assessment of its community benefits.
• Analyze utilization information, staffing, expenses and other characteristics.

***The AHA Annual Survey Database (AHA ASD) CD-ROM has been loaded onto the GIS/Statistical Software computer B3 in the O’Neill Library EIC (this computer has SPSS and Stata already installed). A documentation manual describing the various data elements is available at the Reference Desk .
The License for Usage with Terms of Agreement is very strict. Only current members of the Boston College community may sign-up to use the AHA ASD at the O’Neill Library Reference Desk. Library staff staffing the Reference Desk will check to be sure that the person has a current Boston College ID. The person will then sign-up at the Reference Desk on the GIS/Statistical Software and AHA ASD sign-up sheet for B3, which will include a separate page with the following agreement, and a place for the signature and date to be entered:

1. Accepting the Terms by Health Forum LLC ( “HF”)
1.1 In order to use the Services, you must first agree to the Terms. You may not use the Services if you do not accept the Terms.
2.1 You can accept the Terms by:
(A) Signing below to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by HF through Annual Survey Database. You understand and agree that AHA will treat your use of the Services as acceptance of the Terms from that point onwards.
3. Use of the Services by you
3.1 Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate agreement with HF, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell the Services for any purpose.
4. Proprietary rights
4.1 You acknowledge and agree that AHA own all legal right, title and interest in and to the Services, including any intellectual property rights.

NAME DATE
1.
2.
3. etc.

The Reference Desk Staff will then log-on the user to the AHA ASD software. Users will be asked to log off when finished with the AHA ASD database. Printing will follow the same directions as for GIS.
The Online Catalog indicates

O’Neill Electronic Information Center as location. AHA ASD is also cataloged in the

Statistical Data Catalog.

Barbara Mento and I shall be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you, Wanda and Barbara