Overview of the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD) The Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD) is part of a family of databases and software tools developed for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). The NRD is a unique and powerful database designed to support various types of analyses of national readmission rates for all payers and the uninsured. This database addresses a large gap in health care data - the lack of nationally representative information on hospital readmissions for all ages. Unweighted, the NRD contains data from approximately 15 million discharges each year. Weighted, it estimates roughly 35 million discharges.
Developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HCUP data inform decisionmaking at the national, State, and community levels. This page provides an overview of the NRD. For more details, see NRD Database Documentation and the Introduction to the NRD, 2014 (PDF file, 754 KB; HTML). Contents:
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The NRD is drawn from the HCUP State Inpatient Databases (SID) and can be used to create estimates of national readmission rates for all payers and the uninsured. The 2014 NRD was constructed from 22 States with reliable, verified patient linkage numbers in the SID that could be used to track the patient across hospitals within a State, while adhering to strict privacy guidelines. Key features of the 2014 NRD include:
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The NRD contains clinical and nonclinical variables that support readmission analyses, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and hospitals. There is no data element identifying whether sequential inpatient stays are related or unrelated. The criteria to determine the relationship between hospital admissions is left to the analyst using the NRD. The NRD is comprised of more than 100 clinical and nonclinical variables for each hospital stay, including:
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As a uniform, multi-State weighted database, the NRD promotes comparative studies of health care services and supports health care policy and research on a variety of topics, including:
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The NRD for data years 2013-2014 are available for purchase online through the HCUP Central Distributor. All HCUP data users, including data purchasers and collaborators, must complete the online HCUP Data Use Agreement Training Tool, and read and sign the Data Use Agreement for Nationwide Databases (PDF file, 55 KB; HTML). Questions regarding purchasing databases can be directed to the HCUP Central Distributor:
E-mail: HCUPDistributor@AHRQ.gov
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The NRD is distributed as comma-separated value (CSV) files delivered via secure digital download from the Online HCUP Central Distributor. The files are compressed and encrypted with SecureZIP® from PKWARE. To load and analyze the NRD data on a computer, you users will need the following:
Please note the following based on the software you plan to use:
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Internet Citation: NRD Overview. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). December 2016. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/nrdoverview.jsp. |
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Last modified 12/6/16 |