Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)

The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a collection of healthcare databases, and related software tools and products, developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership. The databases are a national information resource of encounter-level healthcare data produced from the efforts of State data organizations, hospital associations, private data organizations, and the Federal government. They enable research on a broad range of health policy issues, including cost and quality of health services, medical practice patterns, access to healthcare programs, and outcomes of treatments at the national, State, and local market levels.