BACKGROUND In 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed to expand health insurance, narrow health care disparities, and improve health care quality in the United States. As part of this initiative, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are now tracking quality metrics. OBJECTIVE To analyze the effects of insuran...

BACKGROUND Case reports suggest a relationship between amphetamine abuse/dependence and aortic dissection, but no population-based epidemiologic studies have examined this link. Our objective was to test the hypothesis that young adults with a diagnosis of amphetamine abuse/dependence would be at higher risk for aortic dissection after accounting for known risk factors. METHODS In this popula...

OBJECTIVE In this study we used national data to determine changes in the prevalence of hospital admissions for medically complex children over a 15-year period. PATIENTS AND METHODS Data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a component of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, was analyzed in 3-year increments from 1991 to 2005 to determine national trends in rates of hospitalization ...

Adding severity adjustment measures to the HCUP Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) and Kids’ Inpatient Database (KID) will significantly enhance the datasets for research purposes. An evaluation of alternative severity adjustment systems was conducted, focusing on those systems that require only hospital administrative data. The evaluation was conducted for AHRQ by an outside researcher who is n...