The KID yields national estimates of hospital inpatient stays for patients younger than 21 years of age. The unique design of the KID enables national and regional studies of common and rare pediatric conditions. The KID can be used to identify, track, and analyze national trends in health care utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes. KID data are available every three years from 1997 through 2012, which allows researchers to analyze trends over time. The number of States in the KID has grown from 22 in the first year (1997) to 44 in 2012. The KID contains clinical and resource-use information that is included in a typical discharge abstract, with safeguards to protect the privacy of individual patients, physicians, and hospitals (as required by data sources). It contains more than 100 clinical and nonclinical data elements for each hospital stay.
