Healthcare is Beholding Staggering Changes with Big Data

Being conscious of health has become a notable part of human life. To achieve better health, we are willing to invest in tools and advanced technologies.

People regularly see doctors or their respective physicians for follow-up and check-ups. Since the data concerns human lives, this allowed the healthcare industry to hold accurate patient records. Carefully documenting, storing, and analyzing the data became important in the healthcare industry; it is now experiencing a major shift since big data analytics have influenced the industry.

As everyone knows, healthcare is the most complex sector that has to undergo rapid changes to ensure advanced facilities and diagnosing techniques. Hence there is no surprise of the arrival of big data in healthcare. It helps healthcare sectors to store a huge amount of patient data to maintain an overall patient record.

Big healthcare data refers to the plentiful health data gathered from various sources, including electronic health records (EHRs), medical imaging, genetic sequencing, payer records, pharmacy studies, wearable, and, to name a few, medical devices.

It is distinct from conventional electronic medical and human health data used for decision-making by three characteristics:

• It is accessible in huge volumes;
• It travels at high velocity and covers the health industry’s massive digital universe,
• And since it comes from multiple sources, composition and design are highly variable.

Big Data in Healthcare

Track one’s Health

Healthcare practitioners can now monitor the critical factors and statistics of various patients and service users through Big Data and Analytics in the healthcare industry.

This is groundbreaking in terms of how effective healthcare can be, as it facilitates patient management in a way that has never been done before. By health monitoring, the heart rate, sleep, and exercise of a patient can be tracked. Recent medical advances can also go one step further and monitor the pulse, blood pressure, and glucose levels of a patient.

It allows for a healthcare industry that is more pro-active and forward-thinking since health practitioners may restrict those who spend time in the hospital by tracking and intervening until there is a significant health issue.

Cost-Effective

Healthcare is expensive.

Many hospitals and healthcare organizations struggle to meet the requirements to ensure the patient’s quality of treatment. The arrival of big data would enable to reduce costs since it has predictive analysis. The predictive analysis would assist in predicting admission rates and staff administration.

The use of health tracking and monitoring the hospitals and healthcare centers can detect various chronic illnesses from the beginning. Hence, it can reduce the risk and the money that has to be spent on the recovery.

Limiting the Errors

It has been noted several times that clinicians appear to either administer an incorrect drug or wrongly dispatch a different medication. This kind of error can be minimized in general because it is possible to use Big Data to evaluate user data and the prescribed medication.

It can corroborate the data and flag potential beyond the prescription venue to minimize errors and save lives. For physicians who tend to many patients in a day, such tools can be a great tool.

A Better Transformation in Healthcare

Big data can be a great advantage for development in science and technology, aside from the present scenario. Artificial Intelligence, such as IBM’s Watson, can be used for Healthcare to browse several data in seconds to find remedies for different diseases.

Such development is already underway and will continue to expand with the amount of research that Big Data has collected. Not only will it be able to provide accurate solutions, but it will also be able to provide personalized solutions for specific issues.

The availability of predictive analysis can benefit patients traveling to a specific geographical location by observing similar patients in that area.

Real-time Care to the Patients

The healthcare facilities are now ensuring real-time care and attention to the patients since demand proliferates each day.

Nowadays, big data is a helping hand for the hospital authorities to collect the real-time symptoms and changes vital for the diagnosis and medications. Wearable sensors and devices would capture each change happening in the patient’s body to make healthcare more convincing and compelling.

Assistance for the Critical Patients

High-risk patients will now be better helped and more closely tracked by digitizing hospital and patient data.

For instance, if a patient has been regularly admitted to the hospital, data can be obtained to establish trends in their health conditions and be identified for any chronic problems. This knowledge advancement will offer patients quality services and minimize repeated hospital visits. In order to be intact with the modern-day healthcare technology, hospitals need to create an immense effect on critical care patients.

Why Big Data has a significant role in healthcare?

In healthcare, the use of big data is beyond our expectations. 

In a short time, technology has altered the definition of the Healthcare Industry. Finding out the future illness, maintaining solid patient records, and helping the medications; the big data has limited the health centers’ workforce.

For doctors and clinics, collecting error-free data from patients is no longer a challenge. Such data will ensure patients are assessed in real-time without taking too much time and resources. Big data reduces the risk of treating patients in critical condition. Effective use of big data can bring out a lot more in healthcare; it can facilitate precision in the medicines and tests. These factors eventually lead to creating a remarkable space for big data in healthcare.

Big data can help avoid fraud activities, waste of money, and abuse of funds; it would develop trust. The Healthcare sector has witnessed many fraud activities in insurance, bills, and many others; big data would be a safe side for us to get rid of this.

80 percent of patient data is unstructured in today’s healthcare climate:

The big problem of healthcare fields is that about 80% of medical data remains unstructured and untapped after it is created (e.g., text, image, signal, etc.) [2]. Since it is hard to handle this type of data for Electronic Medical Record or most hospital information system, it tends to be ignored, unsaved, or abandoned in most medical centers for a long time [3].

Hyoun-Joong Kong via National Center for Biotechnology Information published in January 2019.

This data comes outside the hospital from automated devices and monitors, emails, reports from doctors and nurses, laboratory tests, and third-party sources. This information’s unstructured nature and the enormous volumes produced to make it a perfect match for advanced analytics of big data.

Growth and Opportunities of Big Data in the Healthcare Market

Healthcare marketing is growing at a fast pace. This growth is fueled by digitization in the healthcare sector. Big data is one of those technologies.

Indeed, big data has made a substantial space in healthcare marketing. The global healthcare sectors are focusing on leveraging big data analytics to enhance their facilities.

The big data in the healthcare market was valued at $16.87 billion during 2017; the market expects to achieve $67.82 billion by 2025 and a CAGR of 19.1% during the forecast period. The healthcare market is growing. This is the prime time for healthcare marketers to build a new business model to tackle the market.

Big data is classified based on analytical service types, hardware, software, and analytical service applications in healthcare. Certainly, the opportunities for marketers are proliferating in the big data healthcare markets. America takes the biggest market share since it is holding advanced technologies.

Challenges Accompanied by Big data in Healthcare

Now let’s check out the darker side of big data analytics in healthcare. Sometimes, data security will create uneasiness in big data analytics.

The concern of hacking, malware, phishing attack, and data theft remain challenges. Most of these healthcare big data are stored in a centralized database; however, sharing this data with outside practitioners is challenging. The administrative and clinical departments need to associate with each other while they are practicing big data analytics. It would assist them in rectifying the challenges that occur during the insurance claiming and other legal procedures.

The healthcare sectors need to keep an eye on big data since it has both advantages and limitations. The precise use of big data is going to change the definition of the healthcare sector certainly. Let’s believe big data will be a miracle in the healthcare industry.

Nutshell

Undoubtedly we can say Big Data would change the healthcare sector shortly. It can change the healthcare sectors; since it has made radical shifts in the healthcare industry within a short span. The trust in advanced healthcare has altered to a great extent after the arrival of big data. Big data has opened a new window of hope among the patients; since it gave positive outcomes.

Data transparency and privacy would develop influential trust. Big data would able to make a significant change in the healthcare market. The global healthcare market is going to see extraordinary growth in the upcoming years.

Finally, it will be important for healthcare to learn from other transformations powered by data. Far too often, by following targets that generate value only for themselves, players have taken advantage of data transparency, which may also happen in the healthcare sector. The future will be more bright and feasible when big data could work efficiently; big data can make a huge difference in the current healthcare sector. The security of human life wouldn’t be in trouble to some extent.

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About the author

Alexander Daniel is a marketing strategist who strongly believes strategies and creative ideas enhance business growth. I’m an analyst as well as marketer, motivated by great ideas. At present, I’m working for InfoGlobalData one of the leading providers of business email lists that trigger marketing campaigns to connect with the right prospects.