New York Hospital Patient Safety Indicators by County for 2015

SPARCS data provides hospital discharge counts and risk-adjusted rates for Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) across New York counties for calendar year 2015. The dataset includes observed, expected, and confidence intervals for PSI measures developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It is published by health.data.ny.gov and was last updated in April 2025.

Use Cases

• Analyze geographic disparities in patient safety by comparing Observed_Rate and PSI Value across different County entries.
• Benchmark hospital performance using risk-adjusted rates by calculating the ratio of Numerator to Denominator for specific PSI Code categories.
• Model temporal trends in specific complications by using Year and PSI Code fields to track changes in Observed_Rate over time.

Strengths

• Includes 95% confidence intervals for risk-adjusted rates, enabling statistical reliability assessment.
• Calculated using AHRQ's established PSI methodology applied to statewide SPARCS inpatient data from 2009 onward.

Limitations

• Contains data for a single year (2015), limiting longitudinal analysis.
• Row count and sample size for each county are unknown, obscuring statistical power.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Calculated from SPARCS inpatient data using AHRQ PSI software; US Census data used for county-level denominators.

Time Range

Calendar Year 2015.

Freshness

Data reflects 2015 discharges but metadata was updated in April 2025.

Geography

New York State, aggregated by patient County.