Big Data Has Changed Healthcare and has now Become Big Business

If data is indeed the new gold, as many have argued, it will serve us well to have a clear understanding of what this gold is, looks like, and can be used. After all, this big data is starting to change the healthcare sector in ways that will make many businesses a lot of money in the coming years. This article will unpack some of the key issues around the explosion of big data and how it is being used in the medical field to create both business opportunities and create serious business threats or risks by its very availability.

Big data, what is it, and why has it grown?

Big data is the collection of information and data sets that are so large, fast, and complicated that they can no longer just be analyzed on a spreadsheet or even using a relational database. Data is now massive and so big it can only be contained in the cloud and analyzed effectively with sophisticated software. Yes, demographic and customer information is great to have for the modern business to make decisions. But the data available is now so much more than this. Every interaction with a customer, client, or even possible client can now be tracked, recorded, and stored to be analyzed later.

The term encapsulates all data that we gather, and there are currently 3 main sources of this big data:-

Social data

The number of people with social media is enormous and growing all the time, as younger generations grow up and join social media, and older generations join to connect with their families. The data gathered will come from the Likes, Tweets & Retweets, Comments, Video Uploads, and any other media that is uploaded on social platforms. The social nature of the information will thus provide huge amounts of customer and consumer behavior and how they feel about the brand, product, or service and will be used for marketing and advertising.

The growth in online interaction and mobile connectivity means that customers are now more active online than ever before, and as such, their digital footprints provide vast amounts of information that is essential for modern business.

Transactional data

This is the data generated from all the daily transactions of clients and customers. Invoices, payment orders, delivery receipts are all part of the transactional data that is then stored and accumulated daily. In the medical field, this transactional data also includes the medicines that would have been paid for or collected from a pharmacy and the associated prescription. These transactions are immense and will include a great deal of personal, medical, and health-related information.

Machine data

This is the data that is generated from industrial equipment and sensors in equipment. This is one of the main sources of the most important medical and health data for medical health care information.

A key point to keep in mind when analyzing and looking at big data is that it has no agenda and is generally non-partisan. Until the data is analyzed, it has no opinion. After that, it simply shows a snapshot of activity at a particular time.

The rise in machine use and online shopping and e-commerce has meant that there is more happening online than ever before, and the data footprints as aforementioned are becoming increasingly significant.

Big Data in Healthcare

The biggest and fastest-growing data set in the world is that of medical and patient records. Healthcare is something that all of us will interact with from birth, throughout our lives, and the amount of data collected and collected is immense. It is a lot more personal and useful than just buying preferences held on Amazon and reflected in the ads on the screen in front of you. Your health records are everything about you, from the time and place you were born to the last prescription you were given. Big data can be used in so many ways in the medical and healthcare fields, primarily to save lives and improve healthcare.

For the healthcare sector, big data has been legitimately used in one of the following ways:-

• Improve clinical treatment and overall options for patients. Knowing the historical detail as to a patient’s health and well-being and making linkages and relationships allows health practitioners to build a cogent understanding of the patient and their needs. Big data gathered and analyzed on a historical basis will allow patients to be tracked and make early risk diagnoses. Patients who are at high risk can be contacted, and arrangements made for early testing and analysis.
• Avoid unnecessary readmissions by using predictive analysis to classify discharged patients depending on their risk of readmission. The ability to automatically contact patients and keep in involved in their recovery once they have left the healthcare organization is a vital part of the use of big data and analytics.
• Improve internal operations and efficiencies:- With detailed historical knowledge of how the organization works and the time spent with each client provides a clear way of improving the service provided. Thus, making it more efficient and effective.
• The use of financial data to improve the health services’ financial viability and profitability can be done using the detailed information as to costs and the return of investment/per patient.
• Predict outbreaks of epidemics. Using big historical data, medical workers can accurately predict outbreaks of disease and epidemics. A great example is how Twitter feeds, and social media data was gathered and analyzed to analyze and assess the 2017 chikungunya outbreaks in Europe.

It is thus a current requirement for most healthcare managers, and that’s why big data features prominently in the new breed of health management courses that you can study online; click here to find out more. However, as with the use of any tools, there can be misuse, and there are indeed various risks associated with such large data sets and the nature of the information contained therein.

It runs true that if data is the new gold, it surely needs the self-same protection that gold bullion stored at Fort Knox has and should be protected at all times.

The Associated Costs and Expenses of big data/security/risks

The most significant risk associated with big data in healthcare is the threat of theft and misuse of such data. Thousands of healthcare providers have been subject to data theft, and hospitals account for over 30% of all large-scale data incidents. The sector as a whole also has major challenges or issues related to did data that make it vulnerable to major cyber-attacks. In the last 3 years alone, over 93 % of all healthcare organizations have experienced a data breach of some form which has to coat them either in reputation or financial costs related to client data. Furthermore, 57% of these organizations have experienced at least 5 of these breaches.

In fact, Federal security agencies had in the past noted that the American Healthcare sector is under threat of imminent attack from cyber sleuths. The data being held is just too tempting for them not to try. Thus far, the main form of attack has been ransomware, and once the data is changed into gibberish, the hospital is then asked to pay to retrieve the information. In October 2020, at least 5 US hospitals were absolutely devastated in this way. These attacks led to an improvement in healthcare-specific data security, and the sector has been forced to re-look at this aspect in terms of now only storing and saving data that the medical and healthcare fields know that they can actually keep safe.

There are numerous steps that health organizations and the users of big data health information can take to protect themselves and their patients/clients and related networked partners. Improving passwords, multifactor authentication, and ensuring that Firewalls are protecting medical and demographic data will all go a long way to keeping it safe and protected.

Such safety of big data is a major aspect of trust and reliability and for the clients and patient peace of mind. It is thus essential that patients are aware as to what type of data is being saved and why this is the case.

Conclusion

Big data is growing all the time and is reaching the stage where it cannot be ignored. The key to the successful use of big data is the ability to proactively analyze, rather than analyzing data that is days old, where the person has already dealt with the issue; it is about automatically tracking and identifying urgent issues that need to be addressed be dealt with immediately. The healthcare sector is one of those that have taken this capability and run with it to the best of their ability. Although the accepted means of making money from healthcare, big data is primarily related to the healthcare organization and the patient itself. One of the top money-making aspects of health care big data is its protection and the cyber security that the major suppositories of healthcare information across the globe.