Part of the author’s job at CIGNA is to produce on a yearly basis a number of rates used in national healthcare quality surveys and accreditation performance measures. Each year when the revised specs came out, she got tired of having to update processes manually, hunting through programs for diagnosis codes and dates that needed to be changed, copying and pasting the same updates and code blocks so many times she lost count, and then inevitably finding out she’d missed a spot when the program either bombed, or – worse – ran all the way through but returned last year’s data instead of this year’s or outdated diagnosis codes. Then when the revisions to the revisions came out and those revised revisions begot new revisions as well, she had to keep going through the same tedious process. This paper describes how to make yearly code maintenance tasks easier in 10 steps, using simple organization techniques, appropriate documentation, macro variables, and parameterized macros.

1. 10 Steps to Easier SAS Code Maintenance Jessica Hampton, CIGNA 09/02/11

4. Steps 1-2: example 09/02/11

6. Step 3: Initial Setup example 09/02/11

8. Step 4: Final Cleanup 09/02/11

14. Step 8: Analysis 09/02/11 transfers immunocompromised state proc codes immunocompromised state diagnoses *For 11, also exclude anemia principal or secondary diagnoses *For 12, also exclude principal or secondary kidney disorder diagnoses include discharges with principal diagnosis code specified: bacterial pneumonia UTI 11,12 transfers cardiac procedure codes in any field *For 7 only, also exclude kidney disease diagnoses if accompanied by hemodialysis procs include discharges with principal diagnosis code specified: hypertension CHF angina 7*,8,13 transfers include discharges with principal diagnosis code specified: diabetes short term complications diabetes long term complications hypovolemia uncontrolled diabetes 1,3,10,14 Exclusions Numerator Measure

15. Step 8: Parameterized Macro 09/02/11 %macro transfer(filename=)/STORE SOURCE; /*identify and delete transfers from numerator*/ CREATE TABLE &filename._TRANS AS SELECT B.conf_id, B.admit_dt, A.disch_dt FROM PQI.&filename A JOIN PQI.&filename B ON A.rhmo=B.rhmo AND A.bkey=B.bkey AND A.disch_dt BETWEEN B.admit_dt AND intnx('DAY',B.admit_dt,-1)/*re-admitted within 24 hours of discharge date*/ WHERE A.conf_id <> B.conf_id AND A.src_sys_prov_id <> B.src_sys_prov_id /*transferred from different facility*/ ; DELETE FROM PQI.&filename WHERE conf_ID IN (SELECT conf_id FROM &filename._TRANS) ; %mend transfer;

16. Step 8: Putting it Together 09/02/11