NPDB National Practitioner Data Bank Public Use Data File - onetomapanalytics/Meta_Data GitHub Wiki

NPDB - National Practitioner Data Bank Public Use Data File

General description

  1. Database primary purpose - Collect and disclose variables regarding medical malpractice payments and adverse actions, including clinical privileges actions, Federal and state licensure and certification actions, professional society membership actions, peer review organization actions, private accreditation actions, exclusions from Federal or state health care programs, and other adjudicated actions or decisions.
  2. Overall data type - Medical (mal)practice
  3. Dataset type - Cross-sectional
  4. Data source - Reports
  5. Data level - Practitioner level
  6. Geographic location of the data collection sites - United States
  7. Sponsor, manager, or home institution - Division of Practitioner Data Bank, Bureau of Health Workforce/Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
  8. Date range - September 1, 1990 through March 31, 2021
  9. Geolocation data - State and country
  10. Dates - Year of original report processed, act or omission, adverse action
  11. Financial variables - Payment amount,
  12. Clinical areas of interest - all
  13. Number of records - 54 variables; number of cases: 1,572,231
  14. Variables that are uniquely present in this dataset - contains selected variables from National Practitioner Data Bank Reports
  15. Database caveats and limitations - In order to assure confidentiality to all types of practitioners, the smallest geographic unit identified in each record is State. However, if workloads permit, the Division of Practitioner Data Bank may be able to provide data sets for particular types of practitioners identified to smaller geographic units to researchers who demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Branch that there are enough practitioners of the subject type in each geographic unit for which they desire data (and also in any remaining area in a State for which they are not requesting data) to preclude identification of individual practitioners. Normally geographical units will have to contain at least several counties. Researchers who request such data sets are also responsible for identifying geographical units by ZIP code and for paying the costs of providing the special data set.

Applicable methods

  1. Association methods, such as logistic regression (1)
  2. Descriptive analysis (2, 3)

High-impact designs

  • Evaluate the growth of physician malpractice payments (4)

  • Evaluate the effects of previous malpractice tort reforms on malpractice payments and premiums (1)

Data dictionary

To access NPDB PUF data dictionary, click here

Variable categories

  1. Patient characteristics [i.e., age group, gender, type (inpatient, outpatient)]
  2. Practitioner characteristics [e.g., age group, work and home state/country, graduation year group, field of license, number of reports]
  3. Report [i.e., type, malpractice allegation, act or omission, adverse act classification, basis, and length]