GHA Discharge Data

Description: Contains monthly reported inpatient, outpatient, psychiatric, and specialty service claims data for 140 Georgia hospital members (representing ~1.2 million patients)
Includes maps with lists of hospitals by county
QualityWorks® helps to collect, report, analyze data for Medicare/Medicaid, includes inpatient and outpatient quality data

The Georgia Discharge Data System (GDDS) was created by GHA to satisfy hospitals’ mandatory state law data reporting requirements. On a monthly basis, hospitals submit their inpatient and outpatient claims data to GHA for the first part of processing. GHA’s data partner, Hospital Industry Data Institute (HIDI), a subsidiary of the Missouri Hospital Association, completes the file with additional data elements such as MS-DRG, Federal Information Processing Standard Publication (FIPS) county codes and calculated ZIP code.

GHA submits completed files on behalf of the hospitals to the Georgia Department of Community Health, Georgia Department of Public Health and the Georgia Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission. GHA also utilizes the data for modeling policy proposals and their impact.

100 percent of the acute care hospitals in Georgia submit their discharge data through GDDS.

Coverage: State

Description of Cohort: All inpatient and outpatient claims across all GA hospitals