How Big Data is Changing the Healthcare Industry

The healthcare sector is growing and so is the data that is associated with this industry. In this dynamic scenario, the effectiveness with which the data is utilized becomes critical. There is also an urgent need to manage patient care and promote innovative healthcare. With this premise in place, the healthcare domain is slowly realizing the importance of newer technologies and harnessing the maximum return from the data which is generated through patient admission, patient health history, insurance claims, and the current medication suggested.

The healthcare industry is slowly moving from legacy systems and slowly embracing newer technologies. One such major change that is changing the course of the healthcare industry for good is data analytics especially Big data analytics.

The value add-on what Big data can contribute to the healthcare industry is immense. Market research projects that the value of the global big data in the healthcare market is expected to reach $34.27 billion by 2022 growing at an impressive CAGR of 22.07%. On a macro-economic level, globally, the big data analytics segment shows an immense potential that translates to $68.03 billion by 2024, a move largely driven by the continued North American investments into electronic health records, workforce management solutions and practice management tools. Here are the different uses where the Big Data causes a disruption in the healthcare industry-

Big Data deployment in the Healthcare Industry

•   To expand the reach of preventable care

•   To encourage the growth of early preventive care

•   To build a solution to predict epidemics

•   To promote the quality of life

•   To spot the potential warning signs

Medical Collaborations into Big Data

Big Data fed into machine learning algorithms is already helping physicians improve patient care. Sensing opportunities medical collaborations have been the latest development where Medical institutions have partnered with leading technology providers. IBM with its Watson Health computer system has collaborated with Mayo Clinic. Partnerships have been seen with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, CVS Health forging collaborations and partnerships.

Trends and Projections

The healthcare industry has witnessed interesting trends when it comes to Big Data. There are two trends that have immensely encouraged the healthcare industry to embrace big data.

•   The first trend is the tectonic shift from a pay-for-service model, which financially rewarded caregivers to perform procedures, to a value-based care model, which instead rewards them based on the health of their patients they have catered to.

•   The second evolving trend involves deploying big data analysis to deliver information which is evidence-based and has the potential to increase efficiencies and helps sharpen the knowledge related to any disease, injury or illness.

Big Data and Opportunities in the Healthcare Sector

Here are 5 ways in which Big Data can help and change the entire course of action of the Healthcare sector.

1. Health Tracking

Big Data helps in the active analysis of the patient's vitals like their sleep, heart rate, exercise, distance walked, etc.  This tracking gives important information on important parameters like monitoring patient's blood pressure, pulse rate, sugar levels and more which will help an organization to implement preventive healthcare solutions.

2. Cost Reduction

Predictive analytics help reduce medical costs by predicting the cost, of a procedure with respect to staff allocation. The will help hospitals to efficiently plan their resources and reduce the Rate of Investment incurred by them.

3. Prioritizing High-Risk Patients

If all the medical records are digitized, the hospital will have an important data base to identify the patients approaching the hospital on a regular basis and understand their chronic issues. This will help hospitals to assist high-risk patients by giving them better care opportunities and offering them customized care.

Roadblocks to Effective Implementation

Here are the challenges which Healthcare Organizations face hitting roadblocks to effective Big Data Implementation-

•   Data Aggregation for Analysis

•   Privacy and Security of patient health information

•   Siloed Data caught into Legacy Systems

•   Budget constraints for effective Implementation

Summing up, Healthcare big data refers to the vast quantities of data which is available to healthcare providers. This data is all poised to grow to reach a whopping 2,314 exabytes by 2020. As a response to the healthcare digitization information, the hospital industry has woken up to challenges of data volume, velocity, variety, and veracity addressing them to adopt technologies capable to collate, store, and analyze the vital big data for intelligent decision making.