The HCUP Nebraska inpatient files were constructed from confidential files from the Nebraska Hospital Association (NHA). The NHA acts as a hospital-controlled agent (central repository) for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating hospital data in the Nebraska Hospital Information System (NHIS).

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

Nebraska provided supplied discharge abstract data from community hospitals that participate in the Nebraska Hospital Association Health Information System (NHIS).

For data year 2001, some member hospitals had data quality issues that caused records to be excluded from the NHIS source files. NHA provided Medstat with the NHA report on the number of discharges included in the NHIS, the number of discharges reported to the Nebraska Health and Human Services System, and the percent difference. Discharge counts excluded newborns. Completeness varies from 23% to 100%. NHA estimates that about 80% of the excluded records were Medicare discharges; the remaining discharges were direct pay.

For 2002, reporting issues that caused records to be excluded from the NHIS source files continued to occur. NHA provided Medstat with the 2002 NHA report on the number of discharges included in the NHIS, the number of discharges reported to the Nebraska Health and Human Services System, and the percent difference. Completeness varies from 38% to 100%. Overall reporting completeness is 90%.

The documentation supplied by Nebraska does not indicate whether information on stays in special units (e.g., psychiatric, rehabilitation, long-term care) within the hospital is included in the data.

The Nebraska Hospital Association prohibits the release of discharge records for patients with HIV diagnoses. These discharges were not included in the source file provided to HCUP and are therefore not included in the HCUP files.

During HCUP processing, records with a discharge disposition of "still a patient" and "admitted as an inpatient" were excluded from the HCUP Nebraska inpatient data.