Health care data in the United States

This article serves as an introduction to the following article, An Inventory of U.S. Health Care Data Bases. As an introduction, this article-reviews the characteristics of U.lS. Health Care Data. These characteristics include a lack of common definition and uniformity of reporting of observations, systems that are sometimes duplicative, and a resistance to data sharing on the part of collecting agencies, arising from the pluralistic American health care economy. Yet federal, state, and local governments as well as private organizations need health data to operate and evaluate their programs. Moreover, recent shifts to block grants and cutbacks in federal funding without accountability requirements will adversely affect our ability to adequately monitor the impact of these programs on the nation's health. The article discusses these data issues, but also emphasizes the need for coordination between the government and private sectors.