The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has announce an opportunity for up to five organizations to beta test the upcoming release of the v2022 SAS QI and, or WinQI software and supporting technical documentation in July 2022.
Participating organizations will apply their ICD-10-CM/PCS hospital discharge data using the SAS QI and WinQI beta software to produce AHRQ QI observed, risk-adjusted 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 either be fixed in the final production release of SAS QI and WinQI v2022 software or it will be considered for future improvements.
Interested organizations should submit their request for participation by Monday, June 13, 2022 to QISupport@ahrq.hhs.gov. The two-week beta testing process is scheduled to start on Monday, June 20, 2022 and end on Friday, July 01, 2022. All submission requests must contain the subject line: AHRQ QI ICD-10 Testing Opportunities.
The v2022 Quality Indicators software
The 2022 SAS QI and WinQI software 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). Once released, the v2022 SAS and WinQI software will be posted on the AHRQ QI website and notifications will be sent via the AHRQ QI listserv.
The v2022 SAS QI and WinQI software will be released in July 2022. The release will include:
- Support for FY2022 ICD-10-CM/PCS coding and risk adjustments in SAS QI and WinQI
- Specification changes to reflect ICD-10-CM/PCS coding
- Support for processing FY2022 hospital discharge data
- Indicator refinements
- Removal of the Limited License APR-DRG Grouper package
- Replacement of All Patients Refined-Diagnosis Related Groups (APR-DRGs) with the Clinical Classifications Software Refined (CCSR) for ICD-10-PCS procedures in IQI risk-adjustment.
- Updated methodology to account for missing Major Diagnostic Category (MDC)
- New hospital-level composite reports
- Methodology to account for COVID-19 discharges for hospital-level indicators
- WinQI redesign for improved user experience
- Detailed information about all the changes in the software will be included in the Release Notes and Change Logs that will be published when the software is released.