General Information - Emergency Room

The emergency room data displayed in the Community Data Profiles and Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICAs), refers to episodes of care provided to Missouri residents at hospitals that have emergency room facilities. The source of these data is the Patient Abstract System (PAS) data file, which is compiled from hospital discharges, emergency room visits, and outpatient surgery records that are reported to the Department of Health and Senior Services by state law. The reporting requirements for the PAS have been in place in Missouri continuously since 1993.

In some instances, certain data values in the patient record are missing or miscoded. Visits with missing or miscoded data values are included in the statewide totals, but may not be included within the displayed categories of certain variables (e.g., race, county of residence). Thus, a total of all categories of a variable may not equal the statewide total for that variable. Patients with a missing state of residence were deleted from the analysis file.  Those visit records identified as Missouri residents, but missing a county identifier, are included in the statewide totals only. If an out-of-state resident visits a Missouri emergency room, they would not be included in these totals, however, Missouri residents who receive care in border states may be included.

Because these datasets are created based on discharge location, a patient who is seen in the emergency room and later admitted and discharged from the hospital’s inpatient facility would not be counted in the emergency room totals. Instead, that patient record would be included with the inpatient hospitalization discharge totals.