Question

What is big data in healthcare and what are its applications? Give some examples of sources of big data and what inferences and insights can be obtained from them. Provide concrete examples.

Answer 1

Big data in healthcare can be defined as the immense information available right from one' heart rate from fitness tracker to their DNA from their in home-genetic test or the visit code of their physician and even total carbon emmision data of the environment being collected, computerized, synthesized, systematized, interpreted and modeled accordingly. It helps in effectively grabbing those specific part of a client's physical and medical information that were considered too complex and immeasurable using the traditional methods. A huge number of machine learning algorithms are used in processing big data. In a medical setting, big data reduces the overall cost by focusing only on the specific stats in a client or a community making analysis faster and more accurate and prevents the onset of diseases. Electronic health records, hospital records, medical imaging like X-ray radiography. Fluoroscopy, Magnetic resonance imaging, genomic sequencing to figure out the order of DNA nucleotides, payor records, pharmaceutical research, wearable and tracking devices and devices that are a part of internet of things are being excessively and extensively used in healthcares. The concept of the Internet of Things which is also called IoT is much popular among the modern generation and has given birth to devices like Fitbit and the Apple Watch which have the ability to track physical movements in the patient and enhancing the health by notifying it to the them. In fact, physicians use them effectively to get information and monitor the progress of their patient. Additionally, there are certain software being implemented into these devices to help people with diabetes and other conditions. There have been an ongoing work which have a tendency this to catch errors in prescription before they occur saving $ 21 billions and 7000 lives per year.