Big Data is considered to be the next big thing in the world of Information and Technology which is going to transform the global business sector. Big Data is defined as the huge variety and volume of data and information that can be gathered by an organisation from the individual consumers in the market.
Big Data allows the business establishments to get access to a large volume of data and information which has been sourced from the market. This enables the business establishments to undertake effective business decisions. It helps them to develop a competitive advantage over their business competitors. Big Data allows the business establis
hments to capitalise on its three pillars of strength – volume of information, variety of information and speed of information.
Volume of Information
The magnitude of date generated by Big Data is usually measured in units such as petabytes, exabytes and zettabytes. To put things in perspective, One petabyte is equivalent to 20 million traditional filing cabinets of text. Exabyte represents 1024 petabyte and zettabyte represents 1024 exabytes. This huge amount of information can be gathered by an organisation through the utilisation of Big Data Analytics.
Big Data provides access to huge amount of information at tremendous speed. It provides access to rich, insightful and current data which helps in the effective business decision making within an organisation. It enables the managers to make decisions based on evidence at a given time. Business establishments track down keep a tab on the type of products and services which are gaining popularity among the customers. This allows the business establishments to get information about the consumer buying behaviour in the market. They are able to evaluate the views and opinions expressed by the consumers on the social media platforms, which eventually allows them to foster customer satisfaction in the market by satisfying their needs and expectations.
Speed of Information
The Big Data allows the business establishments to get access to diverse types of information which can be categorised under: Structured data (that are available in the form of files and records), Unstructured data (that includes textual data such as text messages and blogs and non-textual data like videos and images) Semi-structured data (which includes software that help to bring order to the unstructured data.
Variety of Information
Big Data would play a very essential role in helping to transform the quality of medical care and treatment services which are being delivered by the healthcare establishments. It would enable healthcare establishments to enhance their performance and gain a competitive edge in the industry. This would help in capitalizing on resources which are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and exploitable in nature.
There are many fields where Big Data could be effectively utilised for transforming the existing quality of healthcare. They include the following: Modernizing the care delivery Rethinking the individual care needs and requirements of the patients. Revamping the business strategies of the healthcare establishments. Evaluating the role of New participants. Bringing down the overall cost of healthcare by foster better collaboration and partnership between the public and the private sectors.
Types of Analytics that could be applied to Healthcare Big Data Solutions
There are mainly four types of business analytics which could be applied in the healthcare sector and they include : Comparative analytics Prescriptive analytics Descriptive analytics Predictive analytics
Comparative Analytics
The comparative analytics would provide an effective tool through which medical and healthcare establishments would be able to improve their quality of healthcare delivery systems. It would enable the healthcare service providers to set forth performance and quality benchmarks that would play a crucial role in ensuring better health outcomes for their patients. This would enable the healthcare services to provide a value-based care model that would provide more focus and emphasis on patient safety and well being.
Prescriptive analytics
This would allow the healthcare establishments to find out the best course of action for a given situation. They would be able to identify alternate and more effective treatments for the different health conditions faced by their patients. This would eventually help the medical establishments to provide quality treatment to their service users.
The Predictive analytics is a part of advanced analytics which deals with the forecasting of the unknown future events. It involves the utilisation of data mining, artificial intelligence, machine learning and statistics in order to throw valuable insights into future medical technologies which would help in transforming the healthcare sector.
Understanding the many layers of Analytics in Preventive Care
Avoiding the penalties associated with re-admission of patients Reduced utilisation of the healthcare services by the frequent customers. Better disease management would help in bringing down the long term costs of healthcare Avoiding catastrophic and critical events in the diagnosed patients. Reduction in the number of patients who develop long term and chronic conditions
The main hurdles or challenges towards the successful utilisation of Big Data in order to achieve the bigger ambition of Digital Healthcare lies on healthcare establishments. The data available to the healthcare establishments is going to be integrated and utilised for the purpose of enhancing the quality of healthcare facilities which are being offered to the service users. Millions of data points are being created on a daily basis from diverse sources. The main challenge lies in separating the data from the different solutions and collecting it so as to take a holistic viewpoint of the patient. Predictive analytics has arrived in a big way and it is going to play a major role in transforming the healthcare delivery system. It ensures that each and every patient are able to get an individualized care and attention according to their healthcare requirements.
Role of Big Data in driving Healthcare Transformation
It would help in defining the population according to their health conditions. The healthcare monitoring agencies would be able to identify the gaps that exist in the healthcare services and categorise the risks according to their level of importance. This would help the healthcare establishments to engage with their patients in an effective manner in order to ensure better and individualised care services. It would enable them to keep a track on the health conditions of the patients and they would be able to manage their treatment in an effective manner. This would eventually help them to ensure better health outcomes for the patients. They would be able to measure the health outcomes and find out alternate treatment provisions that provides better and effective results.
Bibliography
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Big data analytics in healthcare: promise and potential. Health information science and systems, 2(1), 3. Roesems-Kerremans, G. (2016).
Big Data in Healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Communications. Groves, P., Kayyali, B., Knott, D., & Kuiken, S. V. (2016). The'big data'revolution in healthcare: Accelerating value and innovation.
