The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a family of healthcare databases and related software tools and products developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership and sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). HCUP databases bring together the data collection efforts of State data organizations (e.g., state public health agencies), state hospital associations, private data organizations, and the Federal government to create a national information resource of encounter-level healthcare data. HCUP includes the largest collection of longitudinal hospital care data in the United States, with all-payer, encounter- level information beginning in 1988. These databases enable research on a broad range of health policy issues, including cost and quality of health services, medical practice patterns, access to healthcare programs, and outcomes of treatments at the national, State, and local market levels. There is no comparable product on the market.
HCUP databases fill needs that other large database cannot fulfill. For example, the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) is a national probability survey designed to meet the need for information on characteristics of inpatients discharged from non-Federal short-stay hospitals in the United States. HCUP databases have a number of advantages that are not available in NHDS, such as:
• Large sample sizes that allow for research on uncommon conditions and procedures
• Census of hospitals within states allowing for state-level analyses and market-area studies
• Patient charge data allowing for economic studies
• Other uses include basic enumeration, epidemiology, health services research, planning, marketing, and trend analysis.
CDC’s Data Hub (within the Division of Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology [OPHDST]) coordinates the acquisition of and access to HCUP databases for users across the agency. To gain access to HCUP state databases, CDC users must complete the HCUP Overview Course and Data Use Agreement Training. Then, users submit a project description and statement of intended use to OPHDST’ detailing their analytic plan and specifying which database(s) and what years are needed. The HCUP Data Custodian, a member of the staff, ensures that CDC users fully understand the breadth, scope, and context of the data. The custodian also verifies that analyses are in line with the AHRQ’s Data Use Agreement terms. Approved projects are then submitted by OPHDST to AHRQ for review via the Online HCUP Central Distributor portal by CDC’s HCUP data custodian.
