Before we talk about big data in health care let’s first address what big data is in its most basic form. Big Data can be defined as extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. Big Data is useful for a variety of reasons and it’s used in various industries from business industry to the transportation industry and of course the health care industry. I’m going to talk about the roles big data plays in these three industries.
Health Care Industry
Understanding Big Data in Health Care: In order to properly understand big data in health care, health practitioners, and health care organizations must first understand which areas within the industry are better suited for a big data solution. Some academic- or research-focused health care institutions are either experimenting with big data or using it in advanced research projects. Those institutions draw upon data scientists, statisticians, graduate students, and the like to wrangle the complexities of big data. There is certainly variety in the data, but most systems collect very similar data objects with an occasional tweak to the model. Most health systems can do plenty today without big data, including meeting most of their analytics and reporting needs. However, In health care, there are large volumes of data coming in. EMRs alone collect huge amounts of data. But some argue that neither the volume nor the velocity of data in health care is truly high enough to require big data today. Working with health systems shows that only a small fraction of the tables in an EMR database (perhaps 400 to 600 tables out of 1000s) are relevant to the current practice of medicine and its corresponding analytics use cases. So, the vast majority of the data collection in health care today could be considered recreational. Although that data may have value down the road as the number of use cases expands, there aren’t many real use cases for much of that data today.
Business Industry
In the business industry, Big data helps digital marketers, create and maintain a competitive advantage when used properly. B2B companies spend a lot of time and effort trying to establish a data measurement strategy, key performance indicators, and how they fit in with their overall business plans. They also need to identify the analytics tools that are best suited to support these plans, goals, and objectives. This kind of research can be challenging if they don’t have the proper tools to navigate their big data. Understanding how to navigate big data to an advantageous point is an incredibly complex undertaking that’s only getting harder and harder to manage as the speed of business continues to accelerate, and the amount of data (hence, the Big in Big Data) gets bigger and bigger. Plus gaps or undetected flaws can quickly weaken confidence and lead to poor results.If a B2B company is using Big Data to try and gain a competitive edge, they should be well prepared in understanding that the benefits of big data also come with many problems.
Technology Industry
In the Tech Industry, Big data is 100% of great importance to both big corporations and start up companies. For tech startups, being able to properly navigate big data to their advantage could be the deciding factor in their success or failure. Even as the most successful and powerful data miners of the modern web are undoubtedly the dominant consumer platforms — Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon in the West, and China’s Alibaba, whose vast digital empires yield them both quantity and quality of data to use as they please. Yet these tech giants aren’t generally in the business of sharing their data holdings to help others unless you want to pay them to target digital advertising on your behalf.