Harnessing Big Data to Improve Healthcare

No doubt about the fact of how quickly the healthcare industry is progressing each day and is expected to reach Rs. 19,56,920 crore (US$ 280 billion) by 2020. With the pace of development, it has become highly important to manage and take complete care of the patients and other particulars related to the healthcare industry.

Several hospitals, practitioners, and researchers have been continuously in jest to find ways to improve the healthcare sector and the result is often based on how Big Data can be used efficiently to make a strong base of analytics.

All the data collected from the sector studying patients, health records, and medical devices, is analyzed and processed to come up with diagnostics. Leveraging the Big Data to maintain quality and sheer volume is the need of the hour and what everyone is striving for.

Big Data has been continuously in focus to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the sector. Along with industry analytics, Big Data in the healthcare industry has made a noticeable mark.

What Big Data Can Do for Healthcare Sector?

Here are the benefits of big data and how it can help the healthcare industry.

High-Risk Patient Care

There have always been attempts to enhance the accuracy of the diagnosis and process run through the patients in the hospitals who seek emergency care. High costs, vague outcomes, or inappropriate results have been continuously in controversy.

Big Data is seen as the resource to be leveraged in maintaining these aspects of the industry and provide better services for reduced costs.

Further, data analytics and tools can also be highly useful to ensure a highly effective treatment approach and procedure in the problems faced by the patients and hospitals where lack of data emerges as one of the most complicated problems.

Cost Reduction

Several costs are incurred often by the management of all the industries due to mismanagement of the finances and related aspects. The healthcare industry is no different. Tools like predictive analysis and data management systems have changed the way significantly of how the management has been working for a long time.

With new tools and practices, Big Data is bringing in new horizons to how things have been working so far and how they can be brought to a more efficient and planned channel to reduce the cost incurred.

Hospital investments are thought to optimized through Big Data and expected to reduce the amount by making investments accurately and when and where required. The United States could save $175 billion in healthcare costs by halving administrative costs.

Patient Health Tracking

Prevention is always better than cure says the healthcare industry itself. Identifying potential healthcare problems in a particular patient suffering from a specific disease or identifying an issue with a larger base of people at once, Big Data tools and tactics have been seen as lifelines to the solutions.

Due to lack of data, the problems and the causes have been often unavoidable leading to severe and further issues. Patient health tracking is a strong aspect of the Big Data that comes in. Using techniques and tools, it has been easier for people as well as the healthcare industry to keep up with the health and continue with a fit and good body.

Advancements in the Healthcare Sector

From the small points that are leveraging the benefits of the Big Data and tools, a larger cause of the advancement of the whole healthcare sector is proposing a great deal of advancement to the world.

With continuously growing advancements and tech facilities, it is very much evident that how quick and easy it has been and will further be reaching the other side of the healthcare industry soon.

Being able to track, collect, and access numerous data points in a matter of few seconds would highly push the growth and advancements are bound to happen.

Technology and Big Data Examples

Prediction of Expected Patients

Many applications and predictive analysis software are being used in the industry to predict and track the number of patients expected to visit the hospital.

This has been highly useful to shift managers and planners to plan accordingly and manage the costs as well as time in a more efficient way.

Predictive Analysis of Health

This application of Big Data and analytics has been serving mankind for a bit of time now and has played an important role in saving and securing the lives of many. It aims to predict and alarm the patients in advance of the unnatural and sudden causes that may turn out to become more severe in future.

The application and IoT devices keep track of various aspects of the body in the day to day lives and the track record can even be shared and analyzed later.

A recent incident where a boy could track his heart rate at a weird level, an apple watch saved him by alarming him beforehand and saved him from a severe heart attack is an example how IoT and Big Data are transforming the way how the healthcare industry has been working.

Collection of Data

Many devices and applications are devised in a way that they keep a track of the patient’s activities and movements.

The data thus collected can be very useful for the diagnosis and treatment of the problem and saving the person from falling into a more severe situation.

A Solution to the Unexplored Side

Continuous attempts and trials are being held to solve the most complex problems being faced by the healthcare industry.

Solutions for the diseases yet to be made for are expected to come out of the Big Data technology and have been in continuous developmental phase for long.

For the disease like Cancer, there have been continuous efforts to point the best way out towards the cure.

Telemedicine

They have been in use by all of us for a long time now and have been playing an important role in making our lives easier.

The healthcare industry transformed the way and it was the initial step towards the digitalization process of the sector but a blend of devices, tools, and Big Data is taking the whole thing to another stage of the development process.

Big Challenges for Big Data in Healthcare

• Collection of clean, complete, accurate, and formatted data for use in multiple processes has always been a continuous battle for the organizations and many of them don’t really seem to be on the winning side of the entire mayhem.
• It is never a concern for front-line clinicians to think about where their data is being stored. It’s a critical cost, security, and performance issue for the IT department of the organization.
• Data security has always been an issue. Number one priority for healthcare organizations shall be how secure their data is, especially in the wake of a series of continuous high profile breaches and hackings. Hospitals alone account for 30% of the total data breaches.
• Once the query process is nailed down by the providers, a report must be generated that is clear, concise, and accessible for the target audience.
• Data is not static and requires frequent updates to remain current, useful, and relevant.

To Conclude

Data and integration have become an important part of all the growing sectors of the world and the healthcare industry is no different. Big data is playing an important role in this development and will continue to open new doors to different horizons and great achievements.

While many of the organizations and parts of the industry still struggling with the data collection and adoption process, data, as always, will continue to pose threats of security, accuracy, privacy, etc. in the coming years.