rHealthDataGov
This package provides an R interface to the HealthData.gov data API.
Note to users: The HealthData.gov Data API is currently down. See this issue for updates.
Info
This package currently supports querying the 33 Hospital Compare data sets that are available via the HealthData.gov Data API. These data sets contain information related to process of care, mortality, and readmission quality measures of U.S. hospitals.
The full functionality of the API is exposed through this package, so you can pass one or more filters that subset a data set on the server-side, returning only the records that match your query. The original API limits the number of records returned by a query to 100 records per HTTP request. This package simplifies the retrieval process by making multiple HTTP requests on your behalf and returning the full result of your query as an R data frame. We also simplify the experience by providing two data objects that provide metadata about the data sources, their available fields and field values. These data objects, which are included in the package, include a data frame called resources that describes the available data sources and a list called filters that includes the available filters for each data resource along with the unique values that exist for each filter.
Please visit the R package documentation for more information.
Examples
Query Hospital Characteristics
The query parameters are passed in POST request in JSON format. Here is an example of a query that can be executed with this package. This is a query of the "Hospital Characteristics" data set that filters to hospitals in San Francisco, CA using the curl command line tool.
curl http://hub.Healthdata.gov/api/action/datastore_search --data-urlencode '
{
"resource_id": "391792b5-9c0a-48a1-918f-2ee63caa1c54",
"filters": {
"addr_city": "SAN FRANCISCO"
}
}'Using this package, we can make the same request as follows:
> df <- fetch_healthdata(resource="hosp", filter=list(addr_city="SAN FRANCISCO"))
> dim(df)
[1] 10 14
> head(df)
addr_city provider_id tel_nbr seqn addr_line_1
1 SAN FRANCISCO 50076 4158332646 38 2425 GEARY BLVD
2 SAN FRANCISCO 50228 4152068000 641 1001 POTRERO AVENUE
3 SAN FRANCISCO 50668 4157592300 660 375 LAGUNA HONDA BLVD
4 SAN FRANCISCO 50008 4156006000 1207 45 CASTRO STREET
5 SAN FRANCISCO 50152 4153536000 2353 900 HYDE ST
6 SAN FRANCISCO 50055 4156416562 2911 3555 CESAR CHAVEZ STREET
ownership_type hsp_accreditation addr_postalcode
1 Government - Hospital District or Authority 94115
2 Government - Local 94110
3 Government - Local 94116
4 Voluntary non-profit - Other 94114
5 Voluntary non-profit - Private 94109
6 Voluntary non-profit - Church 94110
emergency_serv_type addr_state X_id hospital_type
1 Yes CA 38 Short-term
2 Yes CA 641 Short-term
3 Yes CA 660 Short-term
4 Yes CA 1207 Short-term
5 Yes CA 2353 Short-term
6 Yes CA 2911 Short-term
hsp_name county_cd
1 KAISER FOUNDATION HOSPITAL - SAN FRANCISCO 480
2 SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL 480
3 LAGUNA HONDA HOSPITAL & REHABILITATION CENTER 480
4 CALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CTR-DAVIES CAMPUS HOSP 480
5 SAINT FRANCIS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 480
6 CALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CTR - ST. LUKE'S CAMPUS 480To apply multiple filters, we add list elements to the filter argument as follows:
> myfilter <- list(addr_city="SAN FRANCISCO", ownership_type="Government - Local")
> df <- fetch_healthdata(resource="hosp", filter=myfilter)
> dim(df)
[1] 2 14To retrieve the entire data set without filtering, you simply set filter = NULL and wait for the response.
> system.time(df <- fetch_healthdata("hosp", filter=NULL))
user system elapsed
1.902 0.136 15.207
> dim(df)
[1] 4609 14Query Healthcare Quality Indicators
Here we will query for providers with a post-op respiratory failure that is "Worse than the U.S. National Rate". This info is available in the "Healthcare Research and Quality Indicators, Providers (ahrqp)" data set.
> myfilter <- list(psi_11_postop_respfail_1="Worse than U.S. National Rate")
> df <- fetch_healthdata(resource="ahrqp", filter=myfilter)
> dim(df)
[1] 251 63