Purchasing FAQs:
https://www.distributor.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/Purchasing-Frequently-Asked-Questions.aspx

Phone: 866-556-HCUP (4287) (toll free)
Email: HCUPDistributor@AHRQ.gov
Fax: 866-792-5313 (toll free in the United States)

Mailing address:
HCUP Central Distributor
Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.
8757 Georgia Ave, 12th Floor
Silver Spring, MD 20910

HCUP User Support:

Information about the content of the HCUP databases is available on the HCUP User Support (HCUP-US) website (http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov). If you have questions about using the HCUP databases, software tools, supplemental files, and other HCUP products, please review the HCUP Frequently Asked Questions or contact HCUP User Support:

HCUP FAQs:
http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tech_assist/faq.jsp

Phone: 866-290-HCUP (4287) (toll free)
Email: hcup@ahrq.gov

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HEALTHCARE COST AND UTILIZATION PROJECT – HCUP
A FEDERAL-STATE-INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP IN HEALTH DATA
Sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and
the staff of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) thank you for
purchasing the HCUP Kids' Inpatient Database (KID).

HCUP Kids' Inpatient Database (KID)

ABSTRACT

The Kids� Inpatient Database (KID) is part of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), formerly the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

The KID is the only dataset on hospital use, outcomes, and charges designed to study children�s use of hospital services in the United States. The KID is a sample of discharges from all community, non-rehabilitation hospitals in states participating in HCUP. The target universe includes pediatric discharges from community, non-rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. Pediatric discharges are defined as all discharges where the patient was age 20 or less at admission.

The KID contains charge information on all patients, regardless of payer, including persons covered by private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, and the uninsured. The KID's large sample size enables analyses of rare conditions, such as congenital anomalies and uncommon treatments, such as organ transplantation. It can be used to study a wide range of topics including the economic burden of pediatric conditions, access to services, quality of care and patient safety, and the impact of health policy changes.

Inpatient stay records in the KID include clinical and resource use information typically available from discharge abstracts. Discharge weights are provided for calculating national estimates. The KID can be linked to hospital-level data from the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals and county-level data from the Bureau of Health Professions' Area Resource File, except in those states that do not allow the release of hospital identifiers.

The 2003 KID differs from the 2000 KID release in that 11 more states are included, for a total of 36. In addition, some data elements were dropped, some were added, and the values of some data elements were changed.

Access to the KID is open to users who sign data use agreements. Uses are limited to research and aggregate statistical reporting.

For more information on the KID, visit the AHRQ-sponsored HCUP User Support (HCUP-US) Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or see the detailed documentation on the documentation CD that accompanies the data.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE HCUP KIDS� INPATIENT DATABASE (KID)

OVERVIEW OF KID DATA

The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Kids� Inpatient Database (KID) was developed to enable analyses of hospital utilization by children across the United States. The target universe includes pediatric discharges from community, non-rehabilitation hospitals in the United States in 2003. Community hospitals, as defined by the American Hospital Association (AHA), include "all nonfederal, short term, general and other specialty hospitals, excluding hospital units of institutions." Included among community hospitals are academic medical centers and specialty hospitals such as obstetrics gynecology, ear nose throat, orthopedic, and pediatric hospitals. Excluded are federal hospitals (Veterans Administration, Department of Defense, and Indian Health Service hospitals), long-term hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, alcohol/chemical dependency treatment facilities, and hospital units within institutions such as prisons.

The sampling frame is limited to pediatric discharges from community, non-rehabilitation hospitals in 36 participating HCUP Partner states.

Pediatric discharges are defined as all discharges where a patient was 20 years or less at admission. Discharges with missing, invalid, or inconsistent ages are excluded. Pediatric discharges are identified as one of three types of records:

• Uncomplicated in-hospital births (HOSPBRTH = 1 and UNCBRTH = 1)
• Complicated in-hospital births (HOSPBRTH = 1 and UNCBRTH = 0)
• All other pediatric cases (HOSPBRTH = 0).

In-hospital births (HOSPBRTH = 1) are identified by any principal or secondary diagnosis code in the range of V3000 to V3901 with the last two digits of "00" or "01" and the patient is not transferred from another acute care hospital or healthcare facility. Uncomplicated births (UNCBRTH = 1) have a Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) equal to 391 indicating "Normal Newborn."

Unlike the HCUP Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), the KID does not involve a two-stage sampling procedure. Instead, the KID includes a sample of pediatric discharges from all hospitals in the sampling frame. For the sampling, pediatric discharges are stratified by uncomplicated in-hospital birth, complicated in-hospital birth, and all other pediatric cases. To further ensure an accurate representation of each hospital's pediatric case-mix, the discharges are sorted by state, hospital, DRG, and a random number within each DRG. Systematic random sampling is used to select 10 percent of uncomplicated in-hospital births and 80 percent of complicated in-hospital births and other pediatric cases from each frame hospital.

To obtain national estimates, discharge weights are developed using the AHA universe as the standard. For the weights, hospitals are post-stratified on six characteristics contained in the AHA hospital files. These were the same characteristics used to define the NIS sampling strata (ownership/control, bedsize, teaching status, rural/urban location, and U.S. region), with the addition of a stratum for freestanding children's hospitals. To create weights, if there were fewer than two frame hospitals, 30 uncomplicated births, 30 complicated births, and 30 non-birth pediatric discharges sampled in a stratum, that stratum is combined with an "adjacent" stratum containing hospitals with similar characteristics. Discharge weights are created by stratum in proportion to the number of AHA newborns for newborn discharges and in proportion to the total number of (non-newborn) AHA discharges for non-newborn discharges. For detailed information on the design of the KID, refer to the special report, Design of the Kids� Inpatient Database, 2003, available on the KID Documentation CD-ROM and on the HCUP-US Website. KID data sets are currently available for multiple years, as shown in Table 1. Each release of the KID includes:

• Data in fixed-width ASCII format on CD-ROM.
• 2 million to 3 million pediatric inpatient records per year.
• 2,500 to 3,400 hospitals per year.
• Discharge-level weights to calculate national estimates for discharges.
• Hospital File to link the KID to data from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals.
• KID Documentation and tools, also on CD-ROM � including file specifications, programming source code for loading ASCII data into SAS and SPSS, and value labels.

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KID Data Sources, Hospitals, and Inpatient Stays

Table 2 summarizes the data sources, number of hospitals, and number of inpatient stays in each KID database. It also lists the differences in types of hospitals and age inclusion for pediatric cases.

State-Specific Restrictions

Some data sources that contributed data to the KID imposed restrictions on the release of certain data elements or on the number and types of hospitals that could be included in the database. Because of confidentiality laws, some data sources were prohibited from providing HCUP with discharge records that indicated specific medical conditions, such as HIV/AIDS or behavioral health. Detailed information on these state-specific restrictions is available in the report on Sources of KID Data and State-specific Restrictions found on the KID Documentation CD-ROM.

Contents of CD-ROM Set

There are two types of files included in the KID: 1) data files and 2) documentation and tools files.

1. Data Files - three types of fixed-width ASCII formatted data files are included in the KID, beginning with the 2003 data:
   
   Inpatient Core File:The Core file contains pediatric discharges sampled from community, non-rehabilitation hospitals in participating HCUP States. The unit of observation is an inpatient stay record. The Core file contains data elements for linkage, patient demographics, clinical information, and payment information. Sample weights for the three types of records, uncomplicated in-hospital births, complicated in-hospital births, and all other pediatric cases, are calculated separately by stratum and are added to each discharge in the Core File, as appropriate, so that only one discharge weight variable (DISCWT) is needed. See Table 3 for a list of data elements in the Inpatient Core File. This file is available in all years.
   
   Hospital File: The hospital-level file contains one observation for each hospital included in the KID and contains variance estimation data elements, as well as linkage data elements. The unit of observation is the hospital. The HCUP hospital identifier (HOSPID) provides the linkage between the KID Inpatient Core file and the Hospital file. See Table 4 for a list of data elements in the Hospital File. This file is available in all years.
   
   Disease Severity Measures File: This discharge-level file contains information from four different sets of disease severity measures. Information from the severity file is to be used in conjunction with the inpatient Core file. The unit of observation is an inpatient stay record. The HCUP unique record identifier (RECNUM) provides the linkage between the Core file and the Disease Severity Measures files. See Table 5 for a list of data elements in the Severity Measures Files. These files are available beginning with the 2003 KID.
   
   
2. Documentation and Tools Files
   
   Documentation:Complete file documentation, variable notes, and summary statistics are provided in a series of Portable Document Format (*.pdf) files. These files are detailed in Table 6.
   
   SAS source code:Code is included for the format library for the variables and for loading ASCII data into SAS format.
   
   SPSS source code:Code is included for the variable library and for loading ASCII data into SPSS format.
   
   Labels:Labels for the Clinical Classifications Software (CCS), formerly called the Clinical Classifications for Health Policy Research (CCHPR), and for the Diagnosis-Related Groups (multiple versions).
   
   File Specifications:Record layouts for all data files.

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KID Data Elements

The KID contains two types of data: inpatient stay core records and hospital information. Table 3 and Table 4 identify the data elements that can be found in the inpatient stay core and hospital files, respectively. Beginning with the 2003 KID, an additional file including four different sets of disease severity measures is included. Table 5 identifies the data elements in the disease severity measures files.

Not all data elements in the KID are uniformly coded or available across all States. This is not complete documentation for the data; please refer to the KID Documentation CD-ROM for full documentation on all data elements, for summary statistics, and for the record layout.

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SAMPLING OF DISCHARGES INCLUDED IN THE KID

Unlike the HCUP Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), the KID does not involve sampling hospitals. Instead, the KID includes a sample of pediatric discharges from all hospitals in the sampling frame. For the sampling, pediatric discharges in all participating states are stratified by uncomplicated in-hospital birth, complicated in-hospital birth, and all other pediatric cases. To further ensure an accurate representation of each hospital's pediatric case-mix, the discharges are sorted by state, hospital, DRG, and a random number within each DRG. Systematic random sampling is used to select 10 percent of uncomplicated in-hospital births and 80 percent of complicated in-hospital births and other pediatric cases from each frame hospital.

To obtain national estimates, discharge weights are developed using the AHA universe as the standard. For the weights, hospitals are post-stratified on six characteristics contained in the AHA hospital files. These were the same characteristics used to define the NIS sampling strata (ownership/control, bedsize, teaching status, rural/urban location, and U.S. region), with the addition of a stratum for freestanding children's hospitals. If there were fewer than two frame hospitals, 30 uncomplicated births, 30 complicated births, and 30 non-birth pediatric discharges sampled in a stratum, that stratum is combined with an "adjacent" stratum containing hospitals with similar characteristics. Discharge weights are created by stratum in proportion to the number of AHA newborns for newborn discharges and in proportion to the total number of (non-newborn) AHA discharges for non-newborn discharges. For detailed information on the design of the KID, refer to the special report, Design of the Kids� Inpatient Database, 2003, available on the KID Documentation CD-ROM and on the HCUP-US Website.

GETTING STARTED

KID information is provided on two CD-ROMs. The KID data files are on CD-ROM #1 and the KID documentation and tools are on CD-ROM #2.

KID Data Files

In order to load KID data onto your PC, you will need about five gigabytes of space available. Because of the size of the files, the data are distributed as self-extracting PKZIP compressed files. To decompress the data, you should follow these steps:

1. Create a directory for the KID on your hard drive.
2. Copy the self-extracting data files from the KID Data Files CD-ROM into the new directory.
3. Unzip each file by running the corresponding *.exe file.
• Type the file name within DOS or click on the name within Windows Explorer.
• Edit the name of the "Unzip To Folder" in the WinZip Self Extractor dialog to select the desired destination directory for the extracted file.
• Click on the "Unzip" button.

The ASCII data files will then be uncompressed into this directory. After the files are uncompressed, the *.exe files can be deleted.

KID Documentation

KID documentation files on the Documentation CD-ROM provide important user resources. Refer to these to understand the structure and content of the KID and to aid in its use. Many of the documentation files are provided in portable document format (*.pdf) files. Files with the *.pdf extension can be viewed, searched, and printed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader®.

You must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer to access the KID documentation. If you do not have this software on your computer, see the DOCUMENTATION.README.TXT file on KID Documentation CD-ROM for instructions on installing or obtaining the software.

The Acrobat Reader provided on the KID Documentation CD-ROM is designed for IBM-compatible microcomputers running Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition or higher. More information and Acrobat Reader software for other platforms (DOS, Windows 3.1, Macintosh, Sun Systems, etc.) may be obtained free of charge from the Adobe Home Page at http://www.adobe.com/. For further assistance in installing and running the Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer platform, please consult your local support personnel.

Table 6 describes the documentation and tools files that can be found on the KID Documentation CD-ROM. It also illustrates the structure of the directories and subdirectories on the CD. All KID documentation is also available on the HCUP User Support (HCUP-US) Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov.

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HOW TO USE THE KID

This section provides a brief synopsis of special considerations when using the KID. For more details see detailed documentation under Special Reports, Description of Data Elements, and Summary Statistics.

• If anyone other than the original purchaser uses the KID data, be sure to have them read and sign a data use agreement. A copy of the signed data use agreements must be sent to AHRQ. See page 2 for the mailing address. A copy of the KID Data Use Agreement is provided in the binder you receive when you purchase the KID and is available on the HCUP User Support Website: http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov.
• The KID contains discharge-level records, not patient-level records. This means that individual patients who are hospitalized multiple times in one year may be present in the KID multiple times. There is no uniform patient identifier available that allows a patient-level analysis with the KID. This will be especially important to remember for certain conditions for which patients may be hospitalized multiple times in a single year.

Creating National Estimates

• To produce national estimates, use one of the following discharge weights to weight discharges in the KID Core files to pediatric discharges from all U.S. community, non-rehabilitation hospitals. The name of the discharge weight data element depends on the year of data and the type of analysis.

• Similar to the NIS, proper statistical techniques must be used to calculate standard errors and confidence intervals when using the KID. For detailed instructions, refer the special report Calculating Nationwide Inpatient Sample Variances on the HCUP-US website (www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov). In early 2006, a report specific to the KID, Calculating Kids� Inpatient Database (KID) Variances, will also be available on www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov.
• The 1997 KID Comparison Report (available on www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov) assesses the accuracy of 1997 KID estimates. The report for the 2003 KID will be posted on the HCUP User Support Website (www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov) as soon as it is completed. No comparison report was created for the 2000 KID.
• When creating national estimates, it is a good idea to check your estimates against other data sources, if available. For example, the National Hospital Discharge Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/series/sr13/ser13.htm) can provide benchmarks against which to check your national estimates for hospitalizations with more than 5000 cases.

Studying Trends

• When studying trends over time using the KID, be aware that the sampling frame for the KID changes over time, i.e., more states have been added. Estimates from earlier years of the KID may be subject to more sampling bias than later years of the KID.
• Short-term rehabilitation hospitals are included in the 1997 KID, but are excluded from the 2000 and 2003 KID. Patients treated in short-term rehabilitation hospitals tend to have lower mortality rates and longer lengths of stay than patients in other community hospitals. The elimination of rehabilitation hospitals may affect trends but the effect is likely small since only about 3 percent of community hospitals are short-term rehabilitation hospitals and not all state data sources included short term rehabilitation hospitals.

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Choosing Data Elements for Analysis

• For all data elements you plan to use in your analysis, first perform descriptive statistics and examine the range of values, including number of missing cases. Summary statistics for the entire KID are provided in the "Summary Statistics" directory on the KID Documentation CD-ROM. When you detect anomalies (such as large numbers of missing cases), perform descriptive statistics by state for that variable to detect if there are state-specific differences. Sometimes performing descriptive statistics by hospital can be helpful to detect hospital-specific data anomalies.
• Not all data elements in the KID are provided by each state data source. These data elements are provided on the KID because they can be valuable for research purposes but they should be used cautiously. For example, RACE is missing for a number of states thus national estimates using RACE should be interpreted and reported with caveats. Check the documentation and run frequencies by state to identify if a data element is not available in one or more states.
• There are differences across the state data sources in the collection of information that could not be accounted for during HCUP processing to make the data uniform. Be sure to read state-specific notes for each data element that you use in your analysis � this information can be found under "Description of Data Elements" on the KID Documentation CD-ROM.
• Data elements with "_X" suffixes contain state-specific coding, i.e., these data elements are provided by the data sources and have not been altered in any way. For some data elements (e.g., LOS_X and TOTCHG_X) this means that no edit checks have been applied. For other data elements (e.g., PAY1_X), the coding is specific to each state and may not be comparable to any other state.

ICD-9-CM Diagnosis and Procedure Codes

• ICD-9-CM diagnosis and procedure codes provide valuable insights into the reasons for hospitalization and what procedures patients receive, but these codes need to be carefully used and interpreted. ICD-9-CM codes change every October as new codes are introduced and some codes are retired.
• Although the KID contains up to 15 diagnoses and 15 procedures, the number of diagnoses and procedures varies by state. Some states provide as many as 30 diagnoses and 21 procedures, while other states provide as few as 10 diagnoses and 6 procedures. Because very few cases have more than 15 diagnoses or procedures, the diagnosis and procedure vectors were truncated to save space in the KID data files. Two variables are provided which tell you exactly how many diagnoses and procedures were on the original records (NDX and NPR).
• The collection and reporting of external cause of injury (E codes) varies greatly across states. Some States have laws or mandates for the collection of E codes; others do not. Some States do not require hospitals to report E codes in the range 870-879 - "misadventures to patients during surgical and medical care" - which means that these occurrences will be underreported. In the 2003 KID, E codes have been separated from the other diagnoses stored in DX1-DX15 and placed in ECODE1-ECODE4. Be sure to read the state-specific notes on diagnoses and E codes for more details - this can be found under "Description of Data Elements" on the KID Documentation CD-ROM.

OTHER HCUP PRODUCTS

Information on HCUP products and services is available on the World Wide Web on the AHRQ Website https://www.ahrq.gov/research/data/hcup/index.html. HCUP User Support is available at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov.

DATABASES

Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) is a nationwide database of hospital inpatient stays. The NIS is the largest all-payer inpatient care database that is publicly available in the United States, containing data from 5 to 8 million hospital stays from about 1,000 hospitals sampled to approximate a 20-percent stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals. The NIS is available since 1988, allowing analysis of trends over time. For more information, visit the HCUP User Support Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor (detailed below).

State Inpatient Databases (SID) are hospital inpatient databases from Data Organizations participating in HCUP. The SID contain the universe of the inpatient discharge abstracts in the participating HCUP States, translated into a uniform format to facilitate multi-State comparisons and analyses. For more information, visit the HCUP User Support Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor (see below).

State Ambulatory Surgery Databases (SASD) are outpatient databases from Data Organizations in participating HCUP States, which capture surgeries performed on the same day in which patients are admitted and released. The SASD contain the ambulatory surgery encounter abstracts in participating States, translated into a uniform format to facilitate multi-State comparisons and analyses. All of the databases include abstracts from hospital-affiliated ambulatory surgery sites. Some contain the universe of ambulatory surgery encounter abstracts for that State, including records from both hospital-affiliated and freestanding surgery centers. Composition and completeness of data files may vary from State to State. For more information, visit the HCUP User Support Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor (see below).

State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) include discharge information on all emergency department visits that do not result in an admission. Information on patients initially seen in the emergency room and then admitted to the hospital is included in the State Inpatient Databases (SID). The SEDD contain emergency department encounter abstracts from hospital-affiliated emergency department sites. Composition and completeness of data files may vary from State to State. For more information, visit the HCUP User Support Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor (see below).

Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) is a unique database of hospital pediatric inpatient stays. The 1997, 2000 and 2003 KID were specifically designed to permit researchers to study a broad range of conditions and procedures related to child health issues. The KID is created and released every three years. For more information, visit the HCUP User Support Website at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor (see below).

HCUP CENTRAL DISTRIBUTOR

HCUP databases are available for purchase through the AHRQ-sponsored HCUP Central Distributor. All years of the NIS and KID are released through the HCUP Central Distributor. In addition, many of the HCUP State Partners allow the public release of the HCUP State Inpatient Databases (SID), State Ambulatory Surgery Databases (SASD), and the State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) through the HCUP Central Distributor. Application Kits for purchasing the HCUP databases are available online at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov or contact the HCUP Central Distributor directly. Information on how to obtain uniformly-formatted HCUP files from States not participating in the HCUP Central Distributor is also available from the HCUP Central Distributor:

HCUP Central Distributor
Phone: (866) 556-4287 (toll-free)
FAX: (866) 792-5313
website: HCUPdistributor@ahrq.gov

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HCUP USER SUPPORT

HCUP User Support (HCUP-US) provides technical assistance to all HCUP users and is designed to facilitate the use of HCUP data, software tools, and products. The goals of this service are to increase awareness of the strengths and uses of HCUP data and to enhance the skills of individuals using the data for research, education, and policy analysis. A user-friendly Website for HCUP-US is located at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov. This site includes links to information on how to purchase and understand the HCUP databases, as well as links to HCUP User Support Services and Frequently Asked Questions. For further information, consultants are available via both telephone and website to help in planning analytic research and to offer advice about appropriate uses of HCUP data.

HCUPnet

HCUPnet is a Web-based query tool for identifying, tracking, analyzing, and comparing statistics on hospitals at the national, regional, and state level. With HCUPnet you have easy access to national statistics and trends and selected state statistics about hospital stays. HCUPnet guides you step by step to obtain the statistics you need. HCUPnet generates statistics using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), the Kids' Inpatient Database (KID), and the State Inpatient Databases (SID) for those states that have agreed to participate. In addition, HCUPnet provides Quick Statistics � ready-to-use tables on commonly requested information � and national statistics based on the AHRQ Quality Indicators. HCUPnet can be found at: https://datatools.ahrq.gov/hcupnet.

TOOLS

AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) are clinical performance measures for use with readily available inpatient data. Methods and software for the AHRQ Quality Indicators can be downloaded from http://www.qualityindicators.ahrq.gov.

Comorbidity Software assigns variables that identify comorbidities in hospital discharge records using ICD 9 CM diagnosis codes. Methods and software can be downloaded from the HCUP User Support Website, Tools and Software page, at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

Clinical Classifications Software (CCS), formerly known as the Clinical Classifications for Health Policy Research (CCHPRs), are classification systems that group diagnoses and procedures into a limited number of clinically meaningful categories. Software is available that works with ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, and CPT codes. Methods and software can be downloaded from the HCUP User Support Website, Tools and Software page, at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

Mental Health and Substance Abuse Clinical Classifications Software (CCS-MHSA) defines variables that identify general categories for mental health and substance abuse-related ICD-9-CM diagnoses in hospital discharge records. The CCS-MHSA can be used in conjunction with the CCS or can be used alone. Methods and software can be downloaded from the HCUP User Support Website, Tools and Software page, at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

Chronic Conditions Indicator (CCI) provides users an easy way to categorize ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes into one of two categories: chronic or not chronic. The tool can also assign ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes into 1 of 18 body systems. Methods and software can be downloaded from the HCUP User Support Website, Tools and Software page, at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

Procedure Classes identify whether a procedure is (a) diagnostic or therapeutic, and (b) minor or major in terms of invasiveness and/or resource use. Software can be found at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

Cost-to-Charge (CTC) Files enable the conversion of total charge to actual cost. Total charge information represents the amount that hospitals billed for services, but does not reflect how much hospital services actually cost or the specific amounts that hospitals received in payment. The CTC files allow the user to see how hospital charges translate into actual costs. This product is currently available for the NIS and SID and is planned for release for the KID in 2006. Methods and software can be downloaded from the HCUP User Support Website, Tools and Software page, at http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tools_software.jsp.

PUBLICATIONS

HCUP Research Notes and Fact Books report aggregate statistics and detailed analyses using HCUP data. To request copies, contact the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse at (800) 358 9295 or send a postcard to: AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse, P.O. Box 8547, Silver Spring, MD 20907 or visit http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports.jsp.

DATA USE AGREEMENT FOR THE KIDS� INPATIENT DATABASE

Please obtain the current KID Data Use Agreement from the HCUP User Support Website: http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/team/NationwideDUA.jsp.

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