produces national estimates about emergency department (ED) visits across the country. The NEDS describes ED visits, regardless of whether they result in admission, and is an exceptional resource for conducting research on high-profile emergent health delivery issues. One of the most distinctive features of the NEDS is its large sample size, which allows for analysis across hospital types and the study of relatively uncommon disorders and procedures. The following links provide SAS load programs for the NEDS.

Documents are provided in SAS format and there is one SAS load program for each data file. SAS load programs are provided by year. The amount of time it takes to access a document depends on your machine, browser and Internet connection.

In total, the comma-delimited version of the NEDS is about 10 gigabytes (GB); the NEDS Core file loaded into SAS is about 6 GB. In SAS, the largest use of space typically occurs during a sort, which requires work space about three times the size of the file. Thus, the NEDS Core File would require about 18 GB of available workspace to perform a sort. Even most SAS data steps will require twice the storage of the file, so that both the input and output files can coexist. With a file this size and without careful planning, space could easily become a problem in a multi-step SAS program. Because it is not unusual to have several versions of a file marking different steps while preparing it for analysis and more versions for the actual analyses, the amount of space required could escalate rapidly. A researcher needs approximately 60 to 100 GB of space to work comfortably in SAS with the NEDS files.