U.S. Pediatric Inpatient Hospital Stays Database

HCUP Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) is the largest publicly available all-payer pediatric inpatient care database in the United States, containing data from 2 to 3 million hospital stays annually. Developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, it is a sample of discharges from 4,000 U.S. hospitals for patients under 21 years old.

Use Cases

• Analyze diagnoses and procedures to study rare conditions like congenital anomalies across millions of pediatric stays.
• Model expected source of primary payment (e.g., Medicaid, private insurance) against patient demographics like age and sex.
• Investigate hospital charges and cost patterns relative to discharge status and procedures performed.
• Study resource use and outcomes segmented by patient demographics for newborns, children, and adolescents.

Strengths

• Contains 2 to 3 million unweighted hospital discharges annually, enabling analysis of rare conditions and treatments.
• Samples discharges from approximately 4,000 U.S. hospitals, supporting national and regional estimates.
• Includes clinical, demographic, and financial data such as diagnoses, procedures, patient demographics, and hospital charges.

Limitations

• Data access is restricted, requiring a data use agreement and security training, which adds a barrier to immediate use.
• The dataset is a sample (about 10% of normal newborns, 80% of other stays), not a complete census of all pediatric discharges.
• Specific column counts, file formats, and exact data structure are unknown from the provided description.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Collection Method

Sample of pediatric discharges from the HCUP State Inpatient Databases, selected from participating hospitals.

Time Range

Annual data collection (specific years not stated).

Freshness

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Geography

United States, national coverage.