Delivering on Our Promises: The Impact of SAS Analytics in Health and Life Sciences
SAS Analytics plays a crucial role in the Health and Life Sciences (HLS) sector by providing powerful data analytics tools that help organizations make informed, data-driven decisions. These organizations include healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, researchers, and regulatory agencies. SAS (Statistical Analysis System) enables these entities to improve patient outcomes, optimize operations, streamline R&D, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards. Below are key areas where SAS Analytics is making a significant impact, along with real-life examples.
1. Clinical Trials and Drug Development
One of the most critical areas where SAS is used in health and life sciences is in the design, execution, and analysis of clinical trials. SAS provides tools for data management, statistical analysis, and reporting that are required by regulatory bodies like the FDA and EMA.
Examples:
- AstraZeneca: The pharmaceutical company used SAS analytics to streamline its clinical trial processes, improve the efficiency of data analysis, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards. SAS tools helped AstraZeneca identify key biomarkers in clinical trials, accelerating the development of drugs such as its COVID-19 vaccine.
- Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI): The biotechnology company READDI has partnered with SAS since 2021 to apply the most advanced technologies including SAS Viya to transform the drug development process. The goal is developing broad-spectrum, small molecule antiviral drugs before they’re needed, instead of starting from scratch when a new virus emerges.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/readdi.html
2. SAS Advanced Analytics on hosted cloud for scalability and cost saving
SAS hosted advanced analytics in the cloud helps international pharmaceutical companies enhance operations and efficiency. SAS provides A secure analytics foundation and scalable framework for drug development and submission.
Example:
- Chiesi Group: The pharmaceutical group uses SAS® Viya® to analyze information in a collaborative platform, streamline processes and efficiently deliver trial results to regulatory authorities We also have improvements in the way of working – efficient data exchange with suppliers, standardization of processes, as well as how we document the flow of data to be in full compliance with regulatory requirements. From the audit point of view, we feel much more protected.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/chiesi-farmaceutici.html
3. Health System Integration and Data Interoperability and Prediction for disease prevention
SAS supports healthcare organizations in integrating disparate data sources, such as EHRs, claims data, and social determinants of health, into unified systems. This integration enables better decision-making and the creation of holistic patient care plans.
Example:
- New Zealand Ministry of Health: The Ministry of Health in New Zealand wanted to standardize care for diabetes across the country. Knowing the who, informs the what. The team linked six data sources and integrated those sources with a patient's assigned heath number. They used SAS Analytics and Identified cohorts with increased prevalence rate. The outcome is that they can now predict who may be at risk to ensure appropriate resources are available pre-emptively and consistently.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/new-zealand-ministry-health.html
4. Fraud Detection and Compliance
In the healthcare industry, fraud is a significant issue, particularly in billing and insurance claims. SAS’s machine learning and anomaly detection algorithms can identify fraudulent activity by analyzing large amounts of transactional data. Additionally, SAS helps healthcare organizations stay compliant with regulatory standards (like HIPAA in the U.S. and GDPR in Europe).
Example:
- BUPA: Bupa UK Insurance uses SAS analytics to help deliver excellent, affordable health care and prevent insurance fraud. For more than 20 years, Bupa UK Insurance has driven its core data analytics processes – from anti-money laundering activities to financial planning and performance monitoring – using SAS analytics. During this time, the Analytics and Data team developed a broad range of models and dashboards to track key operational metrics.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/bupa.html
5. Operational Efficiency and Cost Management
SAS helps healthcare organizations optimize operational workflows, improve resource allocation, and reduce costs. The platform supports analytics related to patient flow, staffing, supply chain management, and predictive analytical maintenance.
Example:
- Siemens Healtineers: The predictive service and maintenance component of the system, designed using SAS, helps make sure throughput is uninterrupted and productivity remains as high as possible. The effectiveness of the SAS system helped the siemens team manage 58 system and process components and monitored proactively. They achieved 36% less system downtime compared to the reactive service; Optimized service technician deployment, because they know in advance which parts are needed at a particular location.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/siemens-healthineers.html
6. Single trusted version of the truth in the cloud
SAS can analyze data from electronic health records (EHRs) and other sources to monitor patient outcomes, identify trends, and optimize treatment protocols. By leveraging analytics, healthcare providers can offer higher-quality care, improve patient satisfaction, and reduce unnecessary hospitalizations.
SAS also assists organizations in the life sciences sector by helping them comply with regulatory requirements. This includes generating reports for regulatory bodies, ensuring data integrity, and maintaining audit trails for compliance purposes.
Example:
- Santen: SAS helped Santen use cloud-based analytics from SAS to achieve help developing new ocular therapies faster
- Team members around the world can easily access the same version of data, thereby enhancing collaboration, drug studies and development.
- Individual tasks and data access can be granted based on job role and function.
- Management can track the workflow and maintain a history of it.
- Compliance data packages for new drug submissions are prepared efficiently.
https://www.sas.com/en_us/customers/santen.html
Conclusion
SAS Analytics in health and life sciences plays a pivotal role in transforming how organizations approach patient care, drug development, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance.
The use of advanced analytics helps the sector make significant strides in improving outcomes, reducing costs, and advancing innovation.
Through real-world examples such as those presented in this paper, and from what can be found in HealthCare here and from Life Sciences here, it's clear that SAS is not only streamlining processes but also saving lives and improving the quality of healthcare worldwide.
Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.
