John Taylor has been using SAS for about 12 years and admits, he loves SAS! He was first introduced to SAS while working on his BA/MA in Statistics at Boston University. “It became immediately obvious to me that knowing SAS would be invaluable to me as a statistician, so I
With the medical science these days, there are many genetic defects you can be tested for, to see if you might develop a certain problem/disease, or might be a carrier for it. Would you rather know, or not know? (Would your health insurance company rather know, or not know?) These
With this Q&A Part 3, we are about halfway through the questions submitted during the FVA webinar. We did over 15 minutes of live Q&A at the end of the webinar, and covered many of the submitted questions at that time, however I always prefer to issue complete written responses to
Big data. It’s still the hottest topic going – and making it pay off continues to be a challenge. According to a recent IDG Research survey, organizations’ biggest big data headaches are: 1) lack of skills needed to run analysis and 2) difficulty in making data available to users for
In Amsterdam, harnessing the power of the (data) tide With more than 100 km of canals and 1,500 bridges, dikes and dams, Amsterdam has long been in tune with the tides. Today, as an economic tide tugs at Europe and many regions, organizations are coping with a flood of data
Managers, boards of directors, executives - everyone needs up-to-date information for decision making. And today that often means they need it in real-time. James Beaver and Tobin Scroggins from Farm Bureau Bank give their users the option of emailed reports for this real-time or near real-time information, or the users
Dr. Goutam Chakraborty, founder of Oklahoma State University’s SAS Data Mining Certificate Program, was honored at SAS Global Forum with the 2013 SAS Distinguished Professor award. The award is given to individuals for innovative use of SAS in teaching and/or research, and supporting successful student use of SAS. Last year,
Don’t worry! This is not an excerpt from a romantic love letter. The title of this blog post is an allusion to my talk on "Missing Values", at the A2013 conference in June in London. There is not much time for emotions: dealing with missing values in analysis is not
Kimberly Holmes doesn't want to put any limits on what analytics can accomplish at XL Group plc. As the Head of Strategic Analytics, Holmes recently selected SAS Visual Analytics to help the global insurance and reinsurance operations at XL Group meet that lofty goal. We spoke with her at a recent
SAS announced yesterday that Michigan will use the SAS Fraud Framework for Government to, initially, combat fraud, waste and abuse in the state’s unemployment insurance and food stamp programs. Those two programs are good focus areas and I’m confident they will lead to the state recovering funds, avoiding losses and
I'm always looking for ways to make my job sound more relevant to people who ask me, "so what does SAS do?" SAS does so much that I can't possibly list it all, so I need some umbrella terms that can capture the essence of it (and still keep the
The creation of Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) took off in 2009 with the establishment of the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program (SHIECAP). Recently, it seems like HIEs have been somewhat of the middle-child, garnering less attention between the health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. But let’s take a
Independent contractor. Two very simple words that have a dramatic impact on businesses, workers, and government programs. While most people have a basic understanding of the term, they often have very little understanding of the laws governing it, which vary significantly program by program and state by state. This has
If you haven’t heard of an APCD, it’s one of those acronyms you need to know. All-Payer Claims Databases are simply databases that consist of claims data from all health care payers in a given state. This includes private payers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, and public payers such
It takes just one-tenth of a second for us to make a first impression. And if that initial sizing up is followed by the classic icebreaker “What do you do?” the pressure is really on to keep someone engaged in conversation. What do you do? will come up countless times
Jean Paul Isson (Global Vice President of Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics, Monster Worldwide, Inc.) and Jesse Harriott (Chief Analytics Officer, Constant Contact) know a thing or two about business analytics. With almost 40 years of experience between them, they've handled it all—from web mining solutions to business intelligence, predictive
While 2012 has been a very active hurricane season in terms of total storms, the effects on life and property have been relatively small and the need for disaster recovery less than many years. Let's all be thankful for that. Right now, Tropical Storm Sandy is threatening Jamaica and the
During a recent presentation on performance management I had an audience member ask me if perhaps I had minored in cynicism along with my degree in finance. I replied that, with the science, psychology and philosophy I’d taken, I probably had minored in skepticism, but that the cynicism came later,
Andy Pulkstenis of State Farm thinks it is, stating that this red-headed stepchild among modeling technques is where predictive modeling was ten years ago. He opened his talk, "Do You Know or Do You Think You Know? Creating a Testing Culture at State Farm," at the A2012 conference in Las Vegas with
As SLG’s health policy specialist, I’m chartered with developing novel ways to apply data analytics to our state government health systems. If you ask me, it’s the perfect blend of technology and policy - two of my favorite things. However, I sometimes find it challenging to identify the areas within
Among the volumes of information about SAS we were showered with during our new SAS employee orientation, two seemingly insignificant tidbits stuck in my mind. SAS has dedicated about 12 acres of its campus grounds to a state-of-the-art solar farm. SAS prefers employment to outsourcing. Thus, the people we would
The lines at clinics, hospitals and pharmacies seemed endless. My people, the people of Datapolis, were growing wearier by the day… The targeted, on-time communications intended to inform citizens about new healthcare options and relieve stress on the system were arriving late, or being delivered to the wrong consumers. And
Recently, there has been lot of uproar and confusion about the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Many were surprised by the ruling, and others, while happy it was upheld, are concerned about the constitutional questions that arose due to the way the ruling was
In this Innovation Inspiration, a SAS user has developed the insurance rating plans for a country using predictive modeling. How exciting! Additionally, the system adjusts based upon actual experience. This is quite the accomplishment given the complexity of the ratemaking for even a small geographical territory. The comments section reveal the identity of this innovator. Check it out.
I’m beginning to think that 2012 is the year of the customer. We’ve seen a huge increase in customer experience initiatives coming out of the financial services and insurance industry this year. As we’re working with these companies to help them through this journey, you can almost forget that you
Think that you have a good excuse for not completing that SAS users group conference paper, technical article, or SAS Press book chapter? Well, whatever your excuse is, I’ve got a bigger one. Really! Things at the office are so busy that you need to take work home? I can
This is a third post on newspaper stories that I recently read. Today's post deals with science, politics, and rising sea levels. Incidentally, the title is a blatant reference to John Allen Paulos's brilliant book, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. Senate approves law that challenges sea-level science The NC legislature
Now, we all know by now that I'm not a programmer (that makes me very sad sometimes and may frustrate some of you at times), but I know a good paper and presentation when I see one. Christopher Bost knows how to teach a topic. I went to his Tuesday
“When I started using predictive analytics in 1991, I had a desktop computer with a 600 megabyte hard drive running SAS® 5.0 something,” said Olivia Rud, respected business intelligence thought leader and author of Data Mining Cookbook: Modeling Data for Marketing, Risk and Customer Relationship Management. Technology has vastly improved
What is the solution for patient-centric healthcare? Big data, says SAS expert Alice Swearington in the post, Treat patients with big data insights. "Service providers throughout the healthcare continuum that become patient centric first will win the patient," she explains, citing the industry tends toward insurance exchanges and retail insurance
