The HCUP Colorado inpatient files were constructed from the Discharge Data Program (DDP) files from the Colorado Health and Hospital Association.

Colorado supplied discharge abstract data from acute care hospitals, including swing beds and distinct part units.

Not all hospitals report a full calendar year of data. Some hospitals close during the year; other hospitals have technical problems that prevent them from reporting a full year.

The Colorado Health and Hospital Association does not require hospitals to submit information from their SNFs and ICFs, but no attempt has been made to verify their exclusion.

From 1988 to 1990, Colorado supplied abstracts for ambulatory surgeries in the same source files as the inpatient discharge abstracts, distinguished by a record type indicator. Starting in 1991, Colorado supplied inpatient and ambulatory surgery records in separate files. Only the inpatient discharges were retained in the HCUP SID. The table below explains how the inpatient discharges were identified.

How Inpatient Records Were Identified in Colorado Data

Beginning in 1998, records with a discharge disposition of "still a patient" were excluded from the HCUP Colorado inpatient data. Prior to 1998, this disposition code was not used by Colorado.

Longitudinal identification of Boulder Memorial Hospital in Colorado is confusing because the AHA transferred their identification number from one facility to another instead of following their usual practice of assigning a new number to a new facility.

AHA Hospital Identifier. Boulder Memorial hospital, which was owned by the Seventh Day Adventists, was reported by the AHA as temporarily closed between 1988 and 1989. The facility was then acquired by Boulder Community Hospital, and the name Boulder Memorial Hospital was changed to Mapleton Center for Rehabilitation. This is the facility referred to as "Memorial/Mapleton" in the table below.

When the Seventh Day Adventists opened a new hospital, Avista, in a neighboring community, the AHA judged this to be a replacement for Boulder Memorial hospital and reused Boulder Memorial's AHA ID number for the new facility. This is the facility referred to as "Avista" in the table below; it carries the original AHA ID for Boulder Memorial hospital even though it is a new hospital.

HCUP Hospital Identifier. Avista was assigned a new unique HCUP hospital identifier (HOSPID) even though the AHA did not assign a new ID number. Following HCUP conventions, discharges from Boulder Community and Mapleton, which were submitted to the data source (COHA) with distinct ID numbers, are combined during processing and reported together as Boulder Community Hospital to match the AHA definition of that institution.

History of Boulder Memorial Hospital Hospital Identifiers