LI Course
CE Hours: 3 contact hours

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview: The purpose of this Institute is to introduce health services and policy researchers to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and provide them with the foundational resources to apply HCUP data to their research interests. Sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HCUP captures information on 90 percent of all hospital stays in the U.S., and is the largest collection of multi-year, all-payer, encounter-level data available to researchers. It is a family of databases, software tools, and products that enable health services research and policy analysis focusing on hospital, ambulatory surgery and emergency department encounters. HCUP data support cutting-edge health services research and policy analyses. To date, HCUP data have been used in over 500 research articles published in prestigious journals such as the American Journal of Public Health, the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Economics, and Health Services Research. HCUP data also support congressionally mandated reports, such as the National Healthcare Disparities Report and the National Healthcare Quality Report. The possible applications are extremely diverse. The Institute will begin by providing an introduction to HCUP data and will introduce participants to several HCUP software tools, including HCUPnet, the free, online query system that provides instant access to HCUP data. This Institute will also provide researchers with information about generating statistics using some of the databases and tools available through HCUP. Through these sessions, researchers will learn how to access, manipulate, and appropriately weight HCUP data to generate national estimates of U.S. healthcare utilization. In addition, analysts will learn about several HCUP software tools, such as the Clinical Classifications Software, Comorbidity Software, and Cost-to-Charge Ratio files. By the end of the Institute, researchers will understand how to best utilize these data and tools to support their individual analyses. Institute participants will receive a CD containing valuable resources that expand on topics covered in the session, data file descriptions, research examples that use HCUP data, information on how to access documentation, and instructions on how to obtain HCUP data and tools.

Session Objectives: A. Upon completion of this Institute, the participant will be able to describe the available HCUP databases, tools, and products. B. Upon completion of this Institute, the participant will be able to determine how HCUP can support their health services and policy research interests. C. Upon completion of this Institute, the participant will be able to identify how to access the wide range of HCUP resources and documentation available to researchers.

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing