SECONDARY DATA IN HEALTHCARE RESEARCH.
The Healthcare Cost Utilization Project (HCUP) is a group of databases associated with healthcare and related to software tools that have been developed through partnerships between the Federal and the State industry and is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHQR). The databases by HCUP combine the efforts of data collection by the State data organizations and those of the Federal government, creating a national resource of information. HCUP contains the most extensive set of hospital care data in the United States with the data beginning in 1988. The data comprises encounter level information for all payers. The presence of such a database allows research to be carried out on a range of health policy issues, patterns in healthcare, the availability of healthcare, and the impact of treatments at the Federal, State, and local market level.
HCUP databases include: The National Inpatient Sample (NIS); this database contains information of more than seven million hospitals annually. The Kids Inpatient Database (KID), it provides information on pediatric inpatient discharges. Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample which contains data on the number of surgeries that occur in ambulances. The Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS), this database contains estimates of national emergency department visits. There is also the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD). The State Inpatient Databases (SID). The State Ambulatory Surgery and Services Databases (SASD), and finally, the State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD).