The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) featuring 2011 data is now available. The NIS is the largest all-payer inpatient care database in the United States.

The NIS is nationally representative of all short-term, non-Federal hospitals in the U.S. It is drawn from the HCUP State Inpatient Databases (SID) and includes more than 8 million hospital stays. The NIS includes all patients from each sampled hospital, regardless of payer-including persons covered by Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and the uninsured.

The NIS contains data from 46 states and can be weighted to produce nationwide estimates, allowing researchers and policymakers to use the NIS to identify, track, and analyze national trends in healthcare utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes. The vast size of the NIS enables analyses of infrequent conditions, uncommon treatments, and special patient populations.

As part of the HCUP database family, the NIS is considered by health services researchers to be one of the most reliable and affordable databases for studying important healthcare topics.

The 2011 NIS can be purchased through the HCUP Central Distributor, and select statistics can be accessed via HCUPnet. Additional information is located on the NIS Overview Page.