Testing Opportunities - ICD-10 Compliant Software

Testing Opportunities - ICD-10 Compliant Software

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) sent this bulletin at 03/30/2018 11:52 AM EDT

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is pleased to announce the plan for releasing the ICD-10 compliant versions of the 2018 beta SAS QI and WinQI software and supporting technical documentation this spring. AHRQ is revising its versioning approach to better reflect the fiscal year the software tools are released instead of an incremental version number. The 2018 SAS QI and WinQIsoftware will enable organizations to apply the AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) to their own inpatient hospital administrative data to inform quality improvement efforts in acute care settings.

This free SAS or Windows-based software can be used to calculate results for the AHRQ QIs, including: Prevention Quality Indicators (PQI), Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQI), Patient Safety Indicators (PSI), and Pediatric Quality Indicators (PDI). The 2018 SAS and WinQI software will be posted on the AHRQ QI website and notification will be sent via the AHRQ QI list serv.

As part of the ICD-10 software release process, AHRQ will facilitate testing opportunities for five hospitals.

1. The 2018 SAS QI and WinQI software will be released in the spring of 2018. The release will include:

• Support for FY 2018 ICD-10-CM/PCS coding in SAS QI and WinQI (observed rates only; no risk adjustment supported in the 2018 version of software)
• Specification changes to reflect ICD-10-CM/PCS coding
• Implements some specification and programming changes
• Support for processing FY 2018 hospital discharge data

Complete information about all of the changes in the software will be included in the Release Notes and change logs that will be published when the software is released.

2. Opportunity for hospitals interested in participating in the 2018 SAS QI and WinQI software testing activities:

The beta testing activities will provide organizations an opportunity to use their ICD-10-CM/PCS hospital discharge data with the SAS QI and WinQI beta software to produce AHRQ QI rates, and report any issues encountered during their testing. AHRQ will provide a timeline for receiving feedback on issues. The feedback received during the beta period will be fixed in the final production release of SAS QI and WinQI v2018 software or considered for future improvements.

Interested organizations must submit their request for participation by April 11, 2018 to QISupport@ahrq.hhs.gov. Beta testing is scheduled to start on April 16, 2018 and end on April 27, 2018.  All submission requests must contain the subject line: AHRQ QI ICD-10 Testing Opportunities.

If you have any questions or would like to talk with a member of the AHRQ QI team, please contact us at QISupport@ahrq.hhs.gov.

Sincerely,

The AHRQ QI Team