Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a collection of national databases in the field of healthcare. HCUP includes multiple sources of academic, empirical, and statistical information that could be used to improve the quality of federal policies and independent programs (AHRQ, 2022). The current flyer thoroughly examines the National Inpatient Sample (NIS), Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS), Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD), and State Inpatient Databases (SID).
National Inpatient Sample (NIS)
NIS is the largest available database that compiles information about all hospital stays in forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. The processing power of NIS allows containing data from more than 35,000,000 hospitalizations each year. As a result, it enables policymakers and researchers to estimate hospital performances and adjust their decision-making on the national level.
Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS)
NEDS is one of HCUP’s subsidiary databases that contains information about emergency department (ED) visits. It collects data from hospitals in forty states in the country, accounting for approximately 30,000,000 unweighted ED entries. Researchers can use NEDS data in combination with NIS information to estimate the national and regional performances of hospitals.
Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD)
NRD is a database that collects data about readmission entries, allowing researchers and policymakers to evaluate hospital performances more thoroughly (in 30 states). Each input contains information about the patient’s prior length of stay, periods between two or more admissions, and identification characteristics.
State Inpatient Databases (SID)
SID contains information about inpatient records categorized by hospitals and the state. As a result, it provides unique opportunities to analyze hospital performances in specific states and track the data over time. Similar to other databases, the entries include the length of stay, total charges, and patient demographic characteristics.
Contacts (Available in Kentucky)
- HCUP@AHRQ.gov
- (866) 290-4287
Reference
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2022). Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP).