The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) State Emergency Department Databases (SEDD) contain the universe of emergency department visits in participating States. The data are translated into a uniform format to facilitate multi-State comparisons and analyses. The SEDD consist of data from hospital-based emergency department visits that do not result in an admission. The SEDD include all patients, regardless of the expected payer including but not limited to Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, self-pay, or those billed as ‘no charge’. Developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), HCUP data inform decision making at the national, State, and community levels.

The SEDD contain clinical and resource use information included in a typical discharge abstract, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and facilities (as required by data sources). Data elements include but are not limited to: diagnoses, procedures, admission and discharge status, patient demographics (e.g., sex, age, race), total charges, length of stay, and expected payment source, including but not limited to Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, self-pay, or those billed as ‘no charge’. In addition to the core set of uniform data elements common to all SEDD, some include State-specific data elements. The SEDD exclude data elements that could directly or indirectly identify individuals. For some States, hospital and county identifiers are included that permit linkage to the American Hospital Association Annual Survey File and the Bureau of Health Professions' Area Resource File except in States that do not allow the release of hospital identifiers.

Restricted access data files are available with a data use agreement and brief online security training.