The University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine at www.med.unc.edu and SAS at www.sas.com have joined forces to work on a multi-year collaboration to develop analytics driven population health management capabilities to help providers personalize care delivery for patients with Type 2 diabetes. The SAS solution will use big data to help providers identify the best way to engage individual patients in managing their diabetes and overall health.
“With this new solution, physicians will know how to communicate with and engage patients in a personalized manner based on what is likely to work best for each individual patient,” said David Rubinow, MD Director UNC Innovation and Health Care System Transformation.”
He adds, “By understanding the preferences and needs of the individual patient, not just the health history, physicians are able to select and provide resources that are best matched for that individual and then successfully help their patients manage their diabetes and their health.”
With the patient’s permission, UNC and SAS will leverage UNC’s patient data with third party data commonly used in other industries to better understand customer needs and behaviors. Software will be used with diabetes patients to stratify patients according to risk and then customize interventions based on patient preferences, interests, motivations, and lifestyle.
UNC plans to test the effectiveness for using analytic insights in physicians’ offices in a clinical trial. While the initial solution is being deployed for patients with diabetes, UNC and SAS expect many other populations to benefit from providers using software to deliver personalized care.
The collaboration grew from discussions between the SAS Center for Health Analytics and Insights and UNC Health Care and School of Medicine’s Center for Innovations. SAS and UNC have teamed up before and are working on another product to improve patient care for cancer patients.