Small consulting company keeps clients coming back using SAS® Analytics Pro for query and analysis

The HSM Group is the go-to firm for hospitals, medical organizations, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers that need to survey customers. The Scottsdale, AZ, consulting firm develops, runs and analyzes the results of extensive surveys to help companies build customer loyalty. SAS is HSM’s choice for managing and analyzing data from longitudinal studies and those involving complex data sets.

About HSM Group
In business for nearly three decades, the company works for organizations like the American Hospital Association and URAC (a nonprofit group that audits and accredits quality measures in health care organizations), managed care plans, several state hospital associations, health quality organizations (such as NCQA and Leapfrog) and medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Why SAS®?

• For analysis requiring complex or large data sets and longitudinal data, SAS is the choice of Research Director Brett Plummer, PhD. “SAS is much easier to use in a setting where you have complex data sets. There is functionality in SAS that I am not confident exists in other packages – or the capability is much harder to realize.”
• Plummer wants to avoid manual entry to minimize the chance of errors creeping into analysis and reports. SAS allows Plummer to send information directly into Excel, PowerPoint and other Windows applications.
      

Results with SAS®

• The company has a project that requires review of more than 25,000 records each week to select - based on 14 criteria - customers who haven’t been surveyed in the past six months. With SAS, Plummer was able to automate the project, allowing HSM to provide its client with cost-effective service.
• HSM pulls together monthly, quarterly and yearly reports for larger clients. By automating the process with SAS, the company saves 20 to 80 hours of manual work per report. Since Plummer leads a relatively small team of data analysts, the time savings is critical to maintaining client satisfaction.
• Clients keep coming back. About 85 percent of HSM’s business comes from existing clients.

The results illustrated in this article are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each SAS customer’s experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. SAS does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results. The only warranties for SAS products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements in the written agreement for such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Customers have shared their successes with SAS as part of an agreed-upon contractual exchange or project success summarization following a successful implementation of SAS software. Brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

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