Trends in open abdominal surgery in the United States-Observations from 9,950,759 discharges using the 2009-2013 National Inpatient Sample (NIS) datasets.

•This study assesses the total number of open surgeries publicly available through NIS from 2009 to 2013.•The prevalence of incisional hernia repair available in this same database from 2009 to 2013.•A keen focus on comorbidities associated with each discharge grouping.•Open surgeries are decreasing across specialties, while incisional hernia repair increases.•An epidemiologic scope of open surgical discharges in the United States.