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NIS Description of Data Elements

 
ST_BEDSZ - Bedsize category
 
Documentation Sections:
General Notes
Uniform Values
State Specific Notes
General Notes
 

The HCUP variable for hospital bedsize changed names and definitions across data years:

HCUP Variable Data Years Definition
HOSP_BEDSIZE Beginning in 1998 Specific to region, location and teaching status
H_BEDSZ 1993-1997 Specific to location and teaching status
ST_BEDSZ 1988-1992 Same as H_BEDSZ

 

For ST_BEDSZ, the hospital bedsize category is nested within location and teaching status (LOCTEACH).

Location and Teaching Status Bedsize
Small Medium Large
Rural 1-49 50-99 100+
Urban, nonteaching 1-99 100-199 200+
Urban, teaching 1-299 300-499 500+

 

The hospital's location, teaching status, and bedsize were obtained from the AHA Annual Survey of Hospitals. Teaching hospitals have an AMA-approved residency program or have membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals. Bedsize assesses the number of short-term acute beds in a hospital.

Hospital bedsize (ST_BEDSZ) is missing for some zero-weight hospitals for which the information was not available (see the File Composition for the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for a definition of zero-weight hospitals). Zero-weight hospitals are included in the 1988-1992 data for NIS, Release 1. Because relatively few hospitals were affected and the complexity of including these hospitals entailed considerable processing burden and costs, no zero-weight hospitals are included after 1992 in NIS Release 2 through Release 6.

 
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Uniform Values
VariableDescriptionValueValue Description
ST_BEDSZBedsize category1Small
2Medium
3Large
.Missing
 
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State Specific Notes
None
 
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Internet Citation: HCUP NIS Description of Data Elements. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). September 2008. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/db/vars/st_bedsz/nisnote.jsp.
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Last modified 9/17/08