The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) announces the availability of two datasets, the 2006 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), and the 2006 Kids’ Inpatient Database (KID).
Released in May, the NIS is the largest inpatient care database including all patients, regardless of payer — covering Medicare, Medicaid, privately insured, and uninsured patients. The 2006 NIS includes eight million discharge records from more than 1,000 hospitals and includes data drawn from 38 states. NIS data can be weighted to produce national estimates, allowing researchers and policymakers to identify, track and analyze national trends in health care utilization, access, charges, quality and outcomes. The NIS is considered by health services researchers to be one of the most reliable and affordable databases for studying important health care topics.
Released every three years since the 1997 data year, the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) was released in June by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). The KID is the only dataset in the U.S. designed specifically to study hospital use, outcomes, and charges in the pediatric population. The KID includes all patients under age 21 regardless of payer. The 2006 KID includes data from 3,739 hospitals in 38 states. The KID can be weighted to produce national estimates, allowing researchers and policymakers to use the data to identify, track, and analyze national trends in pediatric health care issues.
The 2006 NIS, 2006 KID, and other HCUP databases are available through the HCUP Central Distributor. Additional information on the NIS is available on the HCUP User Support Web site at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/nisoverview.jsp. Additional information on the KID is available on the HCUP User Support Web site at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/kidoverview.jsp.
HCUP is a family of health care databases and related products developed by AHRQ through a Federal-State-Industry partnership. HCUP produces powerful, comprehensive, health care data that can be used to identify, track, and analyze national, regional, and state trends in health care utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes. Additional information about HCUP’s databases and products is available on its User Support Website.