Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) 2008 • Database Released

The   Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality  recently announced the release of its newest database, the 2008 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS).  NEDS is the nation’s largest all-payer emergency department database. It was created to enable analyses of emergency department use patterns and to support public health professionals, administrators, policymakers, and clinicians in their understanding and decision-making regarding this critical source of health care.  

The 2008 NEDS was constructed using records from both the HCUP State Emergency Department Databases and the State Inpatient Databases. It contains data on 28 million ED visits from nearly 1,000 hospital-based emergency departments across the nation. NEDS has many applications for injury research as it contains information on hospital characteristics, patient characteristics, locale, disposition, and nature of the emergency department visit, including injury type.