What are the SASD?

The State Ambulatory Surgery and Services Databases (SASD) are part of the family of databases and software tools developed for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). The SASD are State-specific files that include data for ambulatory surgery and other outpatient services from hospital-owned facilities. In addition, some States provide ambulatory surgery and outpatient services from nonhospital-owned facilities. The SASD are well suited for research that requires complete enumeration of hospital-based ambulatory surgeries within geographic areas or States.

Address Critical Topics

Rely on the SASD to study State-level outpatient surgery issues, including:

• Analyses of ambulatory surgeries
• Trends in ambulatory surgery utilization, charges, and outcomes
• Shift in surgical procedures to outpatient facilities
• Diffusion of medical technology
• Access to care
• Quality of care and patient safety
• Use of hospital services
• Impact of health policy changes
• Diffusion of medical technology

Advance Your Research

Apply more than 100 clinical and nonclinical variables to your research, including:

• All-listed diagnoses and procedures
• Patient demographic characteristics such as sex, age, and (for some States) race
• Total charges
• Expected payer
• Discharge disposition

A trusted resource, with data beginning in 1988, HCUP databases are considered by health services researchers to be among the most reliable and affordable databases for studying important health care topics. Visit the HCUP-US website for more information.

A Comprehensive, User-Friendly Resource

Each participating State's SASD includes encounter-level data for ambulatory surgery and other outpatient services from hospital-owned facilities in that State. In addition, some States provide data on ambulatory surgeries from facilities not owned by hospitals. To facilitate multistate comparisons and analyses, data are translated into a uniform, user-friendly format. Available annually since 1997, SASD files include all patients, regardless of payer, thus providing a unique view of ambulatory surgeries in a defined market or State over time.

Expand Your Analyses

Use HCUP Tools. Free tools and software are available to supplement the SASD for research that aims to assess quality of care and identify revisits or readmissions. Many of these tools can also be used with other administrative health care databases. 

Link to Other Data. Information from sources such as the American Hospital Association Annual Survey Database and the Area Health Resources Files can be linked to some of the SASD to enhance your analyses.

Investigate the Continuum of Care. Combine SASD data with other HCUP state databases such as the State Inpatient Databases or the State Emergency Department Databases to reveal a more complete picture of care.

Easy to Purchase

HCUP's SASD are available for purchase from the online HCUP Central Distributor: www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/tech_assist/centdist.jsp. The HCUP Central Distributor is the entity that accepts, processes, and fulfills applications for the purchase and use of HCUP databases. Each State database is sold separately.

SASD data are provided on CD/DVD in ASCII format. A statistical software package, such as SAS®, SPSS®, or Stata®, is required for analysis. Programs to load data into software packages are provided.

For a list of prices (including discounted student rates) and complete purchasing information, visit the HCUP-US website: www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov. This site also provides access to aggregate statistics from the SASD through the free online query resource known as HCUPnet, and it contains detailed information about the Data Use Agreement, data elements, and software tools.



The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP, pronounced "H-Cup") is a family of powerful health care databases, software tools, and products for advancing research. Sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), HCUP includes the largest all-payer, encounter-level collection of longitudinal health care data (inpatient, ambulatory surgery, and emergency department) in the United States, beginning in 1988.

HCUP is a Federal-State-Industry Partnership that brings together the data collection efforts of many organizations — such as State data organizations, hospital associations, private data organizations, and the Federal Government — to create a national information resource. HCUP would not be possible without the contributions of data collection Partners from across the nation.

For more information about HCUP, please visit www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov.