Glossary
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- National Academy of Sciences
- A body of scholars founded by an act of Congress in the late 1800s to serve as official adviser to the federal government on scientific and technical matters.
- National CAHPS Benchmarking Database
- The national repository for data from the Consumer Assessment of Health Providers & Systems (CAHPS) family of surveys. The database is a resource for survey sponsors, researchers, and others interested in using comparative CAHPS survey results and detailed benchmark data.
- National Committee for Quality Assurance
- An independent, private-sector group that was formed in 1979 to promote quality assurance, standards, and performance measures; to review procedures of HMOs and similar types of plans; and to render an accreditation. NCQA accreditation has become an indicator of quality for an HMO.
- National Coverage Determination
- Medicare releases National Coverage Determinations (NCD) when changes are made to medical services/treatments that were evaluated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and are now covered or not covered by Medicare. (See also local coverage determination).
- National Health Accounts
- A World Health Organization (WHO) program that provides evidence to monitor trends in health spending for all sectors (public and private), and different health care activities, providers, diseases, population groups and regions within a country. Information can be used to make financial projections of a country's health system requirements and compare its own experiences with past experience or with those of other countries.
- National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
- A major program of studies of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. The survey is unique in that it combines interviews and physical examinations, and the program has responsibility for producing vital and health statistics for the nation.
- National Health Expenditure Accounts
- Dating back to 1960, the official estimates of total annual health care spending in the United States: for health care goods and services, public health activities, program administration, the net cost of private insurance, and research and other investment related to health care. The data are presented by type of service, sources of funding, and sponsors.
- National Health Information Network
- Part of the nation's health information technology agenda: development of a secure, nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure that will connect providers, consumers, insurers, and others involved in supporting health and health care. It would enable health information to follow the consumer, be available for clinical decision making, and support appropriate use of health care information beyond direct patient care.
- National Health Interview Survey
- A principal source of information on the health of the civilian non-institutionalized population of the U.S. and one of the major data-collection programs of the National Center for Health Statistics. Its data are used widely throughout the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to monitor trends in illness and disability and are also used by the public health research community for epidemiologic and policy analysis.
- National Health Service
- The common name given to the health care systems of the four countries in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Although broadly similar, the administrative and managerial arrangements among them and their funding levels vary.
- National Health Service Corps
- A federal program to provide financial assistance to persons who are preparing for health professions, in return obligating them to serve in geographic areas in which there is a shortage of health care professionals.
- National Healthcare Quality Report
- An annual document produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that measures trends in effectiveness of care, patient safety, timeliness of care, patient-centeredness, and efficiency of care. It tracks the health care system through numerous quality measures, such as the percentage of heart attack patients who received recommended care when they reach the hospital and the percentage of children who received recommended vaccinations.
- National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
- A survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics that collects data on the utilization and provision of ambulatory care services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments. Findings are based on a national sample of visits to emergency departments and outpatient departments of non-institutional general and short-stay hospitals, exclusive of federal, military, and VA hospitals.
- National Institute for Clinical Excellence
- A statutory National Health Service (NHS) organization whose principal role is to identify and recommend cost-effective health care technologies and develop authoritative clinical guidelines for the United Kingdom that include economic criteria.
- National Institutes of Health
- The principal biomedical research agency of the federal government. The NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The NIH annually invests over $28 billion in medical research. More than 83% of the NIH's funding is awarded through 50,000 competitive grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state and around the world.
- National Long-Term Care Demonstration (Channeling Demonstration)
- A demonstration program funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the 1980s to test the expansion of coverage of community-based long-term care services to individuals over the age of 65 who were functionally impaired, unable to manage ADLs on their own, and lacked informal supports. Contrary to expectations, the evaluation found that Channeling did not decrease hospital or nursing home use.
- National Practitioner Data Bank
- Established through Title IV of the Healthcare Quality Improvement Act of 1986, Pub. Law No. 99-660 (1986), the NPDB contains information on adverse licensure actions, as well as paid medical malpractice judgments and settlements. The law specifies that NPDB make reported information available to health care entities and organizations but not to the general public.
- National Residency Matching Program
- A private, not-for-profit corporation that determines placement of all medical students for graduate medical education in the United States.
- Negligence
- The failure to exercise reasonable care. Professional negligence is the failure of a health care professional to exercise that degree of care and skill practiced by other professionals of similar skill and training, under similar circumstances. (See also medical malpractice).
- New York State Cardiac Surgery Reporting System
- An annual report issued by the state of New York that includes information on the number and death rates from cardiac surgery procedures for individual surgeons. It was one of the earliest U.S. public reporting initiatives designed to promote quality improvement and facilitate consumer selection of high-quality care.
- No-fault liability (no-fault compensation)
- A proposal that all persons injured during medical care be compensated for their injuries regardless of causation. Patients would forfeit their right to sue; instead, they would be paid out of a pool funded by doctors and hospitals. In theory, no-fault liability would distribute awards to a wider variety and number of injured individuals and save resources by reducing the number of lawsuits.
- Non-economic damages cap
- Statutory limits on damages for intangible harms (such as severe pain and suffering, physical and emotional distress, and disfigurement) caused by negligent medical practice. As of 2005, nearly half of the states had implemented a non-economic damages cap.
- Non-group market coverage
- See individual insurance
- Nursing home/nursing facility
- An institution that provides continuous nursing and other services to patients who are not acutely ill but who need nursing and professional services as inpatients. It has permanent facilities and an organized professional staff.
- Nursing Supply Model
- Tracking nurses by age, state, and highest education level attained, this model is used by the Bureau of Health Professions of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to produce annual, state-level projections of registered nurse (RN) supply through 2020.