Characteristics of elderly nursing home current residents and discharges: data from the 1997 National Nursing Home...

This report presents data on the diversity of current nursing home residents and discharges in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, functional status, type of services used, and source of payment. It focuses on utilization of nursing home care among elderly persons 65 years and over.

Estimates in this report are from data collected between July and December 1997 for the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey. This survey is conducted periodically by the National Center for Health Statistics and collects information on a sample of providers and recipients of care from nursing home facilities. The major emphasis of the survey is to collect descriptive and utilization data on current residents and discharges. Current residents are persons in the nursing home on the day of the survey, and discharges represent completed episodes of care that ended during a one-year period prior to the survey.

In 1997, approximately 1.5 million elderly residents lived in nursing homes on an average day in the United States. The majority of these residents were white, widowed, and functionally dependent females. There were 2.1 million elderly nursing home discharges from October 1996-September 1997 with the primary reasons for discharge being hospitalization or death. The most common primary diagnostic category for current residents and discharges was diseases of the circulatory system. The primary source of payment at admission for current elderly residents was Medicaid. Medicare was the primary source of payment at the time of discharge for elderly discharges.