Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)

Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP): HCUP is the Nation’s most comprehensive source of hospital data, including information on in-patient care, ambulatory care, and emergency department visits. HCUP enables researchers, insurers, policymakers and others to study health care delivery and patient outcomes over time, and at the national, regional, State, and community levels. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted rural hospitals more significantly than those in urban settings, according to two studies using data from AHRQ’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). One study, published in Health Affairs, revealed that 35 percent of rural hospitals experienced more than 20 percent increases or decreases in the daily patient volume during the pandemic, compared with just 13 percent of urban hospitals. Rural hospitals that were most impacted were likely to be small-sized, or owned by State or local governments, or classified as critical access hospitals. The other study, published in JAMA Network Open, found that the odds of in-hospital mortality for sepsis increased by 35 percent at rural hospitals during the pandemic, compared with an increase of 27 percent at urban hospitals. The authors of both studies suggested that tailoring responses to the unique needs of rural hospitals could reduce the uneven impact of future health crises.