WAYNE, Pa. and ALPHARETTA, Ga., Aug. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Precyse, a leader in Health Information Management (HIM) technology and services, announces that Cheryl Robbins, RHIT, CCS, Precyse director of remote coding operations, will participate as an expert panelist in the Neonatal/Pediatric workgroup on the ICD-10-CM/PCS conversion of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Quality Indicators (QI)™. The research team at University of California Davis, under a federal contract with AHRQ, has the lead role for the conversion process.

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These workgroups are being formed as part of a structured approach for converting the existing QI specifications from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS, incorporating coding expertise, clinical expertise and health services research/quality measurement expertise. The workgroups will evaluate the results of automated "code mapping" from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS, providing input and advice regarding similarities and differences between ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM/PCS codes that are mapped to each other. This workgroup process will lead to recommendations regarding how the existing AHRQ QIs should be re-specified using ICD-10-CM/PCS codes, retaining the original clinical intent of each indicator while taking advantage of the greater specificity of ICD-10-CM/PCS to improve the indicator's validity.

"I am so honored to participate as a panelist on this ICD-10 workgroup," said Robbins. "I am excited and ready to contribute my expertise on behalf of the Precyse team, and I am looking forward to making a difference in this thought-leading group."

Robbins was selected due to her knowledge of health care quality measurement using administrative data in specific, relevant clinical domains, as well as her expertise in ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM/PCS coding; hospital quality improvement, patient safety and clinical documentation improvement; and her familiarity with the AHRQ Quality Indicators and their application.

About AHRQ
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the health services research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). AHRQ is a home to research centers that specialize in major areas of health care research such as quality improvement and patient safety, outcomes and effectiveness of care, clinical practice and technology assessment, and health care organization and delivery systems. The AHRQ Quality Indicators (AHRQ QIs) are a unique set of measures of health care quality that make use of readily available hospital inpatient administrative data. The QIs have been used for various purposes. Some of these include tracking, hospital self-assessment, reporting of hospital-specific quality or pay for performance.  AHRQ is committed to converting the QIs from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS in an accurate and transparent manner, taking advantage of the additional specificity of ICD-10-CM/PCS to improve the validity and usefulness of the QIs, from October 2014 onward.

About Precyse
Precyse provides industry-leading expert services and comprehensive technologies that empower healthcare organizations to most effectively and efficiently capture, organize, secure and analyze clinical data and transform it into actionable information, supporting the delivery of quality patient care and optimizing operating performance. Precyse has enabled more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems nationwide to improve efficiency and deliver tangible outcomes for more than a decade. With products ranging from an integrated transcription and coding platform with advanced speech recognition, expert workflow technologies and Natural Language Comprehension™ to HIM consulting and services, Precyse's flexible software can be delivered standalone or complemented by a professional staff of more than 1,200 experts. Now more than ever, hospitals and health systems are challenged to achieve meaningful use of the legal health record. Precyse is the partner hospitals across the country choose to achieve this goal. To learn more, visit www.precyse.com.  

Media Contact:
Lisa Algeo, Precyse
610-688-2464 x301
lalgeo@precyse.com

SOURCE Precyse