Using NSQIP as a research tool: How to answer questions that are not amenable to local data

The American College of Surgeons׳ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) releases its de-identified dataset to researchers from participating hospitals annually. This data, with the potential for large sample size, have been frequently utilized to address clinical questions relating to short-term outcomes after surgical procedures, and it is highly utilized in colon and rectal surgery publications. Due to its large sample size and methods of data collection, it is often used to answer clinical questions, which cannot be addressed well using single institution databases. This article focuses on the contents of the NSQIP dataset and on its strengths and weaknesses.