Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)"HCUP is the Nation's most comprehensive source of hospital care data, including information on inpatient stays, ambulatory surgery and services visits, and emergency department encounters. 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 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP, pronounced "H-Cup") is a family of databases, software tools and related products developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership and sponsored by AHRQ."