BLOOMSFIELD, CT – Cigna HealthCare is deploying SAS business intelligence so its informatics group can provide in-depth analysis and reporting to its customers, consultants and brokers.
The enhanced capabilities for analysis and reporting are expected to improve member outreach and thereby improve member health outcomes, said Tamim Ahmed, vice president of informatics and customer reporting for Cigna.
Insurers are being pressured to provide timely, relevant information about specific members or member groups to internal and eternal stakeholders, said Rick Ingraham, global industry marketing manager for SAS Healthcare.
“Programs such as the Cigna Health Advisor Program are heavily reliant upon accessing all points of information that relate to a member, medical conditions and treatment costs to best determine the optimum manner and targeting for delivery of health and wellness messages to members,” he said.
Ingraham noted that health plans are keenly aware of the value of delivering information to programs focused on medical outcomes and quality balanced with cost.
With the focus shifting from claims to quality, employer groups want health plans to show how the health plan programs for which they are paying affect their employees’ health, he said.
“As the industry observes further enrollment in consumer-directed healthcare, the ability to deliver timely and relevant care and outcomes information will be even more critical to demonstrate value,” Ingraham said.
As reporting and analysis are shifted to care issues, greater data integration, analytical insight and deployment of actionable information will be required, he said.
“The capacity that Cigna has achieved through SAS business intelligence will not only improve the depth and breadth of information they can make available to their members, it also supports new plan and product development, and performance management internally,” he said.