Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project

Data Set: Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project

Collected By: AHRQ

• The State Inpatient Databases contain the universe of inpatient discharge abstracts from data organizations in more than 35 States and covers more than 90 percent of all U.S. community hospital discharges.
• The State Ambulatory Surgery Databases (SASD) contain data from ambulatory care encounters in hospital-affiliated (and sometimes, freestanding) ambulatory surgery sites in more than 20 States. Files are available beginning with data year 1997.
• The State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) contain data from hospital-affiliated emergency department abstracts for visits that do not result in a hospitalization. More than 15 States participate in the SEDD.  Files are available beginning with data year 1999.
• Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), the largest all-payer inpatient care database in the United States, contains data from approximately 8 million hospital stays from roughly 1,000 hospitals; this approximates a 20-percent stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals. The number of States in the NIS varies by year.
• Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) is the only all-payer inpatient care database for children in the United States. KID data are available beginning in 1997; the number of States and discharges varies by year. The 2003 KID contains a sample of 3 million discharges for children age 20 and younger from nearly 3,500 U.S. community hospitals.

Key Variables: HCUP databases contain a core set of clinical and nonclinical information found in a typical discharge abstract including all-listed diagnoses and procedures, discharge status, patient demographics, and charges for all patients, regardless of payer (e.g., persons covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, as well as no insurance).  The information is translated into a uniform format to facilitate both multistate and national-State comparisons and analyses.

Documentation: http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup

• Encinosa, W. E., Bernard, D. M.,  Steiner, C. A., & Chen, C. C. (2005). Use And Costs Of Bariatric Surgery And Prescription Weight-Loss Medications. Health Affairs, 24(4), 1039-1046.
• Case, B. G., Olfson, M., Marcus, S. C., & Siegel, C. (2007). Trends in the Inpatient Mental Health Treatment of Children and Adolescents in US Community Hospitals Between 1990 and 2000. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 64(1), 89-96.