Source Files

The HCUP Washington inpatient files were constructed from the Washington Comprehensive Hospital Abstract Reporting System (CHARS) data received from the Washington State Department of Health.

Beginning with 2017 data, Washington removes diagnosis codes from the records of children less than age 18 for the following conditions: mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders (including those related to pregnancy and childbirth and excluding those due to psychoactive substances); symptoms and signs involving emotional state (including suicide attempt); and poisoning and adverse effect of drugs and other biological substances.

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

Washington supplied uniform bills for inpatient stays from all acute care units, alcohol dependency units, bone marrow transplant units, extended care units, psychiatric units, rehabilitation units, group health units, and swing bed units.

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 Washington indicates that stays in the following special units within a hospital are included in the data: psychiatric, rehabilitation, swing bed, and extended care. Beginning with 2006 data, these records can be identified with the HCUP variable HOSPITALUNIT.

Prior to 2006, records for these different types of care can be identified by the fourth digit of the source-supplied hospital identifier (DSHOSPID) on each patient record:

Washington assigns this value to DSHOSPID based upon the type of unit discharging the patient.

Records with a discharge disposition of "still a patient" or patient admitted as an inpatient to this hospital were excluded from the HCUP Washington inpatient data.