The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released the 2018 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS). The NEDS is the largest all-payer emergency department (ED) database in the United States that is publicly available. It enables analyses of ED utilization patterns and supports public health professionals, administrators, policymakers, and clinicians in their decision making regarding this critical source of care.

Constructed using records from both the HCUP State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) and the State Inpatient Databases (SID), the 2018 NEDS contains data from more than 35 million ED visits in 36 States and the District of Columbia – approximating a 20-percent stratified sample of hospital-owned EDs in the United States. Weights are provided to calculate national estimates pertaining to approximately 143 million ED visits that took place in 2018. The NEDS provides information on patients admitted to the hospital through the ED and on patients treated and released or transferred to another hospital from the ED.

Additional information about the NEDS can be found on the HCUP-US website. The 2018 NEDS can be purchased through the HCUP Central Distributor.