Source Files

The HCUP California emergency department (ED) files were constructed from confidential files received from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD). Facilities report their encounter data via the Medical Information Reporting for California System (MIRCal). OSHPD supplies separate ambulatory surgery and emergency department source files. OSHPD uses a patient type indicator to distinguish between patients treated in an ED (record type value "E") and patients with an ambulatory surgery (record type value "A").

Patients treated in the ED, and then treated and released from observation care are also captured in the ED data. These patients are assigned a discharge status of "home".

OSHPD excluded ED visits that, after processing by OSHPD, did not contain a complete and "in-range" admission date or discharge date. California also excluded ED visits that had an unknown or missing date of birth.

OSHPD removes ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM diagnoses codes for HIV test results.

Beginning with 2009 data, OSHPD changed regulations to require hospitals to report all external cause of injury diagnosis codes including those specific to medical misadventures. Prior to 2009, OSHPD did not require collection of diagnosis codes identifying medical misadventures.

Selection of Records for Inclusion in the SEDD

All records identified by OSHPD as ED (i.e., included in the separate ED data file provided to HCUP) are included in the SEDD (HCUP data element STATE_ED=1 based on record type of "E").

Additionally, any other records with evidence of ED services that are flagged by the variable HCUP_ED (i.e., HCUP_ED>0) during HCUP processing are included in the SEDD. If a record in the SASD also has evidence of ED services based on the HCUP criteria (HCUP data element HCUP_ED not equal to 0), then the SASD record is also included in the SEDD. These records will have the same value for the HCUP data element KEY.

Types of Facilities Included in the Files Provided to HCUP by the Partner

OSHPD provides HCUP with emergency department (ED) data from all licensed hospital-owned EDs in the State.

A comparison of the number of hospitals included in the SEDD and the number of hospitals reported in the AHA Annual Survey is available starting in data year 2010.

Hospital-owned EDs do not always report data for a full calendar year. Some open or close during the year; others have technical problems that prevent them from reporting data for all months in a year.

Exclusion of Records During HCUP Data Processing

Beginning with 2016 data, records with a discharge disposition of "still a patient" are retained in the HCUP SEDD. Prior to 2016 data, these records were excluded.