Source Files

The District of Columbia Hospital Association (DCHA) provides HCUP with a combined outpatient file. Records in the outpatient file were marked by one of the following type of treatment codes:

• 1 for emergency department (ED)
• 2 for Fast Track ED (urgent care) within hospital
• 3 for ambulatory surgery.

Exclude from the source data provided to HCUP are records for freestanding ED visits, ambulatory surgery from freestanding clinics, observation stays after an ED visit, and observation stays without ED services.

Selection of Records for Inclusion in the SEDD

All records identified by DCHA as ED are included in the SEDD (HCUP data element STATE_ED=1 based on treatment codes "1" for ED and "2" for urgent care).

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

DCHA provides HCUP with ED data from all licensed non-governmental, 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 2014.

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 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.

Additional SEDD Notes

Patients coming into the ED can also have observation services (OS) care prior to being discharged. HCUP expects these records to be included in the SEDD, however, ED-OS combination records are not provided to HCUP on the District of Columbia's ED data file. ED-OS records account for roughly 3-6 percent of SEDD records in 2012.