The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) provides HCUP with an emergency department (ED) data for patients registered in the ED for purposes of seeking ED services, including observation, and not admitted as an inpatient to the same hospital.

The Florida AHCA provides HCUP with a combined outpatient file, which includes encounter-level data for ambulatory surgery (AS) and other outpatient services, as well as ED visits. AHCA includes a type of service indicator in their source data that is used to identify ED visits (service type 2) and AS/other outpatient services (service type 1).

Selection of Records for Inclusion in the SEDD

The Florida AHCA provides HCUP with one outpatient file in which ED records are included with records for other nonemergent outpatient services. All records identified by AHCA as ED are included in the SEDD (HCUP data element STATE_ED=1 based on service type 2).

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 Partne

The Florida AHCA provides HCUP with emergency department (ED) data from all licensed hospital-owned EDs in the State. This includes stand-alone (satellite) EDs operating on a Single Group License arrangement under an acute hospital's main campus license.

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 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. Beginning in 2010, records with a designation of "admitted as an inpatient" are retained in the SEDD, even though this rarely occurs. Prior to 2010, records with a designation of "admitted as an inpatient" were excluded from the files.