SPARCS: New York Hospital Inpatient Discharges with Costs and Diagnoses, 2009

SPARCS de-identified data provides discharge-level detail on patient characteristics, diagnoses, treatments, services, and charges for New York hospitals. The dataset contains 30 columns, including Facility Name, Length of Stay, Total Costs, Total Charges, and clinical classifications like APR DRG and CCS Diagnosis codes. Data is sourced from health.data.ny.gov and was last updated in April 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyzing cost variation by facility and diagnosis using Total Costs, Total Charges, Facility Name, and APR DRG Description.
• Modeling length of stay predictors from patient demographics and severity using Length of Stay, Age Group, Gender, and APR Severity of Illness Description.
• Studying payment source distribution and patient disposition with Source of Payment 1-3, Patient Disposition, and Type of Admission.
• Exploring demographic disparities in healthcare access using Race, Ethnicity, Zip Code - 3 digits, and CCS Diagnosis Description.

Strengths

• Contains 30 detailed columns covering clinical, financial, and demographic aspects of hospital stays.
• Data is explicitly de-identified, with protected health information redacted per HIPAA standards.
• Includes standardized clinical classification codes (APR DRG, CCS) for analysis.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data is for a single year (2009), limiting longitudinal analysis.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

health.data.ny.gov via the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS).

Collection Method

Administrative discharge data collected from hospitals, with identifiers redacted.

Time Range

2009

Freshness

Last updated 2025-04-01 18:21:19; freshness should be verified.

Geography

New York State, United States.