WHAT is Business Analytics ?

Business analytics (BA) is the practice of iterative, methodical exploration of an

organizations data with emphasis on statistical analysis. Business analytics is
used by companies committed to data-driven decision making.


Abbreviated as BA, business analytics is the combination of skills, technologies,
applications and processes used by organizations to gain insight in to their business
based on data and statistics to drive business planning. Business analytics is used
to evaluate organization-wide operations, and can be implemented in any
department from sales to product development to customer service.
Business analytics solutions typically use use data, statistical and quantitative
analysis and fact-based data to measure past performance to guide an
organization's business planning.









SAS (Statistical Analysis System)

Health analytics encompasses the technologies and skills used to deliver business,
clinical and programmatic insights into the complex interdependencies that drive
medical outcomes, costs and oversight.
Through modeling, optimization, predictive analytics and business intelligence,
organizations can gain insights to strengthen financial and budgetary performance,
deepen consumer-centric relationships and improve the way health care is
conceived and delivered for better outcomes across the entire spectrum of health
industries:
Health analytics for life sciences
Diminished pipelines. Escalating development costs. A changing health care
market. After years of therapeutic and commercial successes, life sciences
companies are grappling with these new realities and searching for ways to survive
and thrive in an evolving health care economy.
Advanced analytics can deliver the crucial insights necessary to propel a business
toward growth and success by:
Getting new medications to patients faster.
Providing regulatory bodies with evidence of drug safety and efficacy.
Better understanding disease states.
Improving manufacturing processes and sales and marketing efforts.
Identifying and developing the next generation of health care treatments.
Identifying optimal strategies to commercialize treatments.
By providing the most advanced portfolio of analytical software and services in the
world, SAS has become the trusted leader in health analytics. That's why, for more
than three decades, leading life sciences companies have relied on SAS Analytics
for drug discovery, clinical trials, sales and marketing, and manufacturing.
Health analytics for health insurance
In the midst of economic instability and health care reform, health plans face
unprecedented challenges. As the market becomes increasingly complex,
consumer-centered and regulated, critical questions surrounding future growth,
profitability and sustainability abound. And answering them will require new data
sources, more complex analysis and fact-based decision making at an
unprecedented level.
Advanced data management and predictive analytics enable data-driven decisions
that will allow health plans to adapt to new market realities by fully understanding
the new dynamics and applying them to their unique portfolios of business from
predicting and managing shifts in the customer base, to transitioning from a
wholesale to a consumer marketplace, to bending the cost curve through health and
condition management, to detecting and preventing fraud, and beyond.
SAS has in-depth domain knowledge and experience from more than three decades
of delivering health analytics to the health insurer industry for aggressive fraud
detection and prevention, health and condition management for improved
outcomes, actuarial analysis for improved financial performance and new data-
based methods for customer retention. With SAS Analytics, health insurers can
gain real value and cost savings and demonstrate that value to those purchasing
benefits and to government regulators.
Health analytics for health care providers
In the face of ever-rising health care costs, aging patient populations, the impact
both actual and potential of health care reform, and unforeseen complexities,
health care providers have never had a greater need to derive trusted insights from
data.
From increasing patient safety, to improving the management and quality of care,
to becoming more financially stable through efficiency and cost management, the
use of advanced analytics is critical.
For more than three decades, health care providers have used SAS Analytics to:
Measure, track and improve performance more effectively and efficiently.
Improve health outcomes and patient safety by delivering evidence-based
improvements in quality of care.
Save millions of dollars through accurate forecasting and real-time access to
information.

As we see more shared risk between providers and payers, SAS can be used to
manage these new risk arrangements.
Public health analytics
While the cost to government of supporting a national health care system can be
crippling, it can also result in health care modernization. With the goal of
improving health care while lowering costs, policy makers are funding programs
that encourage the sharing of data and adoption of electronic health records
(EHRs).
Governmental and non-governmental organizations collect and generate huge
amounts of health care data. Clinical data combined with administrative data can
be used to demonstrate if the money being spent to improve population health is
actually working. And, as digital data streams grow, analytics will become more
critical to manage costs and use scarce resources wisely.
Organizations dedicated to public health are using SAS Analytics and business
intelligence to support national health policy and budgetary decisions, perform
regulatory and oversight activities, and fund and conduct health care research. But
most important, SAS is helping implement better and more cost-effective health
care.


Analytics For Health care

Overview

Analytics at work in healthcare
Healthcare systems around the world are facing aging populations, chronic illness
and revolutionarybut expensivetreatments, which all put pressure on
healthcare payers and healthcare providers. The massive amounts of data and ever
expanding treatment options are making it difficult to balance patient care with
controlling operational costs.
Business analytics solutions from IBM help healthcare plans and providers address
challenges in three key areas:
Building more efficient, sustainable healthcare systems
Collaborating in treatment decision-making to improve patient care and outcomes
Increasing healthcare access while providing greater value to payers









Solutions
IBM Business Analytics solutions for Healthcare

Healthcare providers
IBM Business Analytics software helps hospitals, clinics and physician practices
improve their financial status and patient care delivery models by:
Driving process efficiencies and enabling better revenue cycle management and
financial performance management
Increasing patient access to services
Improving the quality of patient care and outcomes by using predictive analytics to
identify the best course of treatment

Healthcare plans
IBM Business Analytics software provides health plans and insurers with
systematic planning, analytics, reporting and predictive capabilities that:
Drive operational efficiencies by gaining greater insight into claims processes and
administrative expenses
Improve member services while meeting regulatory and compliance demands
Optimize provider, product and portfolio performance and reduce risk




Oracle Health Sciences Pharmacovigilance and Risk
Management Solutions

Oracle Health Sciences case management and reporting, business analytics and
intelligence, and signal detection and management solutions support regulatory
compliance while reducing costs.
Overview
Automate and streamline entire drug development safety processes
Identify safety problems and manage risk across product lifecycle
Enable flexible deployment with on-premise, cloud, or hybrid options
Integrated applications unify the user experience
Identify and analyze safety signals from ICSR and clinical data
Benefits
Simplify processes, reduce cycle times, and make in-stream decisions
Enhance the user experience with people- and process-centric solutions
Enable collaborative workflows within and across organizations



API Heath care
Make Better Decisions Thanks to Real-Time Information.
Outdated information can make it difficult to proactively manage overtime and
more efficiently control labor costs. Designed specifically for a 24/7 healthcare
environment, our integrated Healthcare Business Analytics Solution delivers deep
insight into all areas, promoting better efficiency and more fiscally sound labor
decisions. Our solution doesnt just point out problems; it shows how to fix them.
Now more than ever before, creating a link between the clinical and financial sides
of the healthcare business is essential to delivering quality patient care enterprise-
wide.

A Big Picture View of the Workforce.

When it comes to healthcare staffing, resource optimization is the goal. Its costly
to deploy more resources than necessary, and its detrimental to quality care goals
to not have the right resources in place. Integrated into the workforce management
suite, our business analytics tools provide a broad real-time view of labor resources
across every department, enabling managers to make instant adjustments.
Optimizing for excellence begins with effective distribution of labor resources.



Controlling Overtime Keeps the Clinical and Financial Sides
of the Business in Sync.

If left unchecked, overtime can become one of the largest expenses a health system
will have. While not completely unavoidable, reining in unnecessary overtime is
critical to bringing down expenses and ensuring the most effective use of labor
resources. Our innovative business analytics technology allows for a complete
view of the labor landscape that includes actual cost in dollars as well as hours. In
addition it considers actual time worked and future schedules, alerting managers of
preventable overtime situations and incidental overtime occurrences.

Improve Performance By Keeping Productivity Elevated.

Overtime isnt the only barrier to aligning clinical and financial goals. Productivity
challenges also play a significant role in preventing a fully optimized workforce.
Integrated time and attendance productivity data allows for the easy evaluation of
staff efficiencies in relation to work completed. Understanding where to improve
efficiencies is important to keeping performance elevated and quality high.




5 ways hospitals can use data analytics

When it comes to healthcare analytics, hospitals and health systems can benefit
most from the information if they move towards understanding the analytic
discoveries, rather than just focusing on the straight facts.
George Zachariah, a consultant at Dynamics Research Corporation in Andover,
Mass., explains the top five ways hospital systems can better use health analytics in
order to get the most out of the information.

1. Use analytics to help cut down on administrative costs.

To reduce administrative costs its really one of the biggest challenges we face
in the industry, said Zachariah. One-fourth of all healthcare budget expenses are
going to administrative costs, and that is not a surprise because you need human
resources in order to perform.

Zachariah suggests that hospital systems begin to better utilize and exchange the
information they already have by making sure their medical codes are properly
used, and thus, the correct reimbursements are received.

Right now, with electronic medical records, you can see that automated coding
can significantly enhance how we can turn healthcare encounters into cash flow by
decreasing administrative costs, he said.

2. Use analytics for clinical decision support.

Zachariah said that having all medical tests, lab reports and prescribed medications
for patients on one electronic dashboard can significantly improve the way
clinicians make decisions about their patients while at the same time cutting costs
for the organization.

If all the important information is on one electronic dashboard, clinicians can
easily see what needs to get done for a patient, and what has already been done.
They can then make clinical decisions right on the spot, he said. In addition,
clinicians will not be double-prescribing patients certain medications due to the
lack of information they have on the patient.

3. Cut down on fraud and abuse.

Zachariah said that with such a significant amount of money lost in the healthcare
industry due to fraud and abuse, its important for organizations to use analytics for
insight into patient information and what physicians are doing for their patients.


Analytics can track fraudulent and incorrect payments, as well as the history of an
individual patient, he said. However, its not just about the analytic tool itself but
understanding the tool and how to use it to get the right answers.

4. Use analytics for better care coordination.

Zachariah believes that the use of healthcare analytics in the next 10 years is going
to be extremely important for hospital systems.
Even within the same hospital systems, it can be very disjointed, he said. I think
we need to use analytics to help with patient handoff, both within systems and
between all types of healthcare organizations across the country. Historically,
within many organizations different specialties just didnt communicate to one
another about a patient, and I think we can really work to have all records
reachable across the country.

5. Use analytics for improved patient wellness.
Analytics can help healthcare organizations remind patients to keep up with a
healthy lifestyle, as well as keep track of where a patient stands in regard to their
lifestyle choices, said Zackariah.

Analytics can be used to provide information on ways a certain patient can
modify his or her lifestyle, he said. This makes a patients health a huge priority
and I dont think people will mind be reminded to take care of themselves.