Post date: Dec 14, 2010 7:18:14 PM
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) summary results for 2007 were released in November. It is found on the Ambulatory Health Care Data page of the National Center for Health Statistics. The focus is on the 994,321 office visits.
I'm looking at the data from the perspective of e-prescribing adoption. While 42.7% of office visits continue to be solo/partner practices, it is a significant drop from results 10 years ago. Pratices with 6-10 physicians showed the greatest increase in office visits - moving from 12.1% to 17.7% of office visits. Generally the larger the practice the more likely an electronic health record has been adopted so this is good news.
For these office visits, there was an average of 2.26 "medication mentions". This isn't exactly prescriptions as it includes OTC, immunizations, and desensitizing agents. Around 10% of office visits involve 5 or more medications. Less than 1% of office visits are for adverse effects of medical, surgical care, or medications.
There are many other data categories that haven't been mentioned.