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SAS Analytics Adopted by Health Care
November 30, 2009
"With the entire U.S. health care system under the microscope of reform efforts," SAS (News - Alert) officials said, "parts of such change depend upon health insurers controlling costs, improving health care outcomes and maximizing member satisfaction."
Of the 39 companies within the oldest and largest family of health plans, "all but four have deployed SAS software," according to SAS , the Cary, N.C.-based CRM analytics tools vendor. In fact, the company said, "one in three Americans -- more than 100 million residents -- counts on a Blue Cross and Blue Shield company for health coverage."
With increasing pressure from health care reform for health insurers to cut costs and invest in modern technology architecture, "technologies such as advanced analytics are increasingly a key element in cost control,” said Kunal Pandya, senior analyst, health insurance practice at Aite Group, an independent business technology research firm. “For health care insurers, such technologies can assist with detecting fraud, managing risk driven by preventative interactions and other areas that make the system more efficient and effective.”
The SAS Business Analytics Framework is described by company officials as a blend of data integration, analytics, reporting as well as "an ever-expanding portfolio of industry and line-of-business" products for organizations to address "immediate business issues."
Earlier this week, SAS and Netezza (News - Alert) Corporation, a vendor of data warehouse and analytic appliances, expanded their partnership to bring in-database analytic processing to mutual customers, according to SAS officials.
Company officials add that "joint R&D will further integrate the companies' respective products, starting with SAS Scoring Accelerator for Netezza, available in early 2010."
The SAS Scoring Accelerator for Netezza is evidently designed to help businesses obtain analytical results: "Customers using SAS Enterprise Miner and the Netezza TwinFin data warehouse appliance will translate and execute scoring models directly within Netezza's parallel environment."
Rather than manually transforming and processing code outside the database, the product automates data preparation and model deployment tasks inside the database to let customers use Netezza data warehousing investments with SAS Business Analytics.
Company officials add that "joint R&D will further integrate the companies' respective products, starting with SAS Scoring Accelerator for Netezza, available in early 2010."
The SAS Scoring Accelerator for Netezza is evidently designed to help businesses obtain analytical results: "Customers using SAS Enterprise Miner and the Netezza TwinFin data warehouse appliance will translate and execute scoring models directly within Netezza's parallel environment."
Rather than manually transforming and processing code outside the database, the product automates data preparation and model deployment tasks inside the database to let customers use Netezza data warehousing investments with SAS Business Analytics.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Amy Tierney
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