SAS unveils improved analytic tools for financial and medical sectors

LAS VEGAS: SAS has unveiled new and updated analytics tools for the healthcare and financial industries designed to provide workers with improved decision-making capabilities.

The new Health and Condition Management (HCM) tool and the 4.3 update to the Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) product were unveiled at the firm's Global Forum event as SAS seeks to consolidate its position in these markets.

Laurie Rose, product management director for health and life sciences at SAS, said that the HCM offering allows medical workers to use data in a more complete way to offer better-informed healthcare.

"With this tool you can access information on previous treatments, medications and overall medical history to formulate the best approach on everything from treatment to whether marketing campaign information should be sent by text, phone or mail," she said.

"This means you can take a more proactive approach to healthcare and uncover information you may not have seen before. This is something major health bodies are promoting, such as the World Health Organisation."

The GRC update allows staff to create configurable workflows and have a single view of the relevant policy systems, ensuring that they are basing decisions on all relevant information.

The system automatically updates to provide information on changes to laws and regulations, to reduce the time staff have to spend looking for this information.

Tom Kimner, head of SAS America's Risk Practice division, explained that workers in financial institutions will be able to concentrate on their primary businesses objectives.

"With this we can increase the likelihood of increasing business objectives while reducing the possibility of surprises for stakeholders, customers and regulators by improving the automation of GRC processes and the identification of possible issues," he said.

The update to the GRC tool is available from today, while the HCM product will be available soon, although no set dates were given.