This fascinating book highlights the importance of common language and definitions in today's healthcare world. In every chapter, Craig Dickstein and Renu Gehring use their considerable experience to illustrate a variety of time-tested and success-proven SAS techniques to manage, report, and analyze typical healthcare administrative data. I believe reading this book will help healthcare analysts to keep abreast of industry changes and adjust business practices and programming as necessary.

Al Cordoba
Director, SAS Center of Excellence
Truven Health Analytics

Administrative Healthcare Data: A Guide to Its Origin, Content, and Application Using SAS^® by Dickstein and Gehring is the 'Swiss Army Knife' of books addressing this very timely topic of Healthcare Data analysis. All the key areas necessary for the prospective, current, and seasoned healthcare analyst are skillfully covered in just over 200 pages. The authors were able to do this by interleaving the text with many relevant links to related sites. A big plus for this book is a balance between theory and practical application. This is accomplished by including real-life case study analysis using SAS Enterprise Guide – satisfying the need of the programming 'Junkie' and the beginner alike. This book is clear, concise, and very detailed, which will help make you a better healthcare analyst – you should have your personal copy on hand for sure.

Kevin Brooks MSc., PhD
Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
Program in Public Health

Must have it! This book is a tremendous resource and should be required reading for anyone who will be working with administrative healthcare claims data and SAS. Craig Dickstein and Renu Gehring have done a masterful job of providing a clear and well-written document about administrative healthcare claims within the context of the broader healthcare system. This book is filled with details about facility, professional, and pharmacy claim types and all the key coding systems that are used. Case studies of industry-wide hospital use, financial rates, HEDIS preventive care, and medication adherence measures are provided using SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS macros, and basic SAS coding techniques. New and experienced analysts will benefit significantly from Administrative Healthcare Data: A Guide to Its Organization, Content, and Application Using SAS^®.

Karl Finison
Director of Analytic Development