Data Catalog

The largest all-payer ambulatory surgery database in the United States, the Nationwide Ambulatory Surgery Sample (NASS) produces national estimates of major ambulatory surgery encounters in hospital-owned facilities. The NASS contains clinical and resource-use information that is included in a typical hospital-owned facility record, including patient characteristics, clinical diagnostic and surgical procedure codes, disposition of patients, total charges, expected source of payment, and facility characteristics.

The State Ambulatory Surgery and Services Databases (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 uniform format of the SASD helps facilitate cross-State comparisons. The SASD are well suited for research that requires complete enumeration of hospital-based ambulatory surgeries within geographic areas or States.

The Pediatric Participant Use Data File (PUF) is a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant data file containing cases submitted to the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Pediatric® (ACS NSQIP Pediatric®). The PUF contains patient-level, aggregate data and does not identify hospitals, health care providers, or patients. The ACS NSQIP Pediatric collects data on approximately 120 variables, including preoperative risk factors, intraoperative variables, and 30-day postoperative mortality and morbidity outcomes for patients undergoing major surgical procedures in both the inpatient and outpatient setting. The intended purpose of this file is to provide researchers at participating sites with a data resource they can use to investigate and advance the quality of care delivered to the surgical patient through the analysis of cases captured by ACS NSQIP Pediatric. Additional procedure-specific PUFs are available for appendectomy, spinal fusion, and cerebrospinal fluid shunt.