Source Files

The HCUP Maryland inpatient files were constructed from the confidential files received from the State of Maryland's Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC).

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

Demographic and utilization data for inpatient stays in Maryland acute care, chronic, rehabilitation, and pediatric specialty hospitals were supplied by HSCRC in the Uniform Hospital Discharge Abstract Data Set.

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

Hospitals do not always report data for a full calendar year. Some hospitals open or close during the year; other hospitals have technical problems that prevent them from reporting data for all months in a year.

Inclusion of Stays in Special Units

The documentation provided by Maryland indicates that stays in distinct psychiatric and rehabilitation units are included in the data. These records can be identified with the HCUP variable HOSPITALUNIT.

Exclusion of Records During HCUP Data Processing

Records with a discharge disposition of "still a patient" and "admitted as an inpatient" were excluded from the HCUP Maryland inpatient data.

Additional SID Notes

As of July 17, 2019, skinny files containing the patient's ZIP Code (HCUP data element ZIP) are available for the Central Distributor SID for data years 2008 through 2017. Users can link the year-specific skinny ZIP Code files to the same year Core file by using data elements YEAR and KEY. Starting in data year 2018, the data element ZIP is stored on the Core file.