Before we get into the discussion of Big Data in the Health Sector, it’s good to know what Big Data is.
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Understanding Big Data
Big Data is a term that describes the large volumes of data, both structured and unstructured, that inundate businesses on a daily basis. But it’s not the amount of data that matters. It’s what the organization does with the data that matters.
Big data can be analyzed for understanding that leads to better strategic business decisions and moves.
The concept of Big Data has been around for years; most organizations now understand that if they capture all the data that flows into their business, they can apply analytics and derive significant value from that data. However, the new benefits brought by big data analytics are speed and efficiency.
The Importance of Big Data
- Cost reduction. Big data technologies like Hadoop and cloud-based analytics bring significant cost advantages when it comes to storing large amounts of data, plus they can identify more efficient ways of doing business.
- Faster, better decision making. With Hadoop’s speed and in-memory analytics, combined with the ability to analyze new data sources, companies can analyze information immediately and make decisions based on what they’ve learned.
- New products and services. With the ability to measure customer needs and satisfaction through analytics comes the power to deliver what customers want.
Applications of Big Data in Healthcare
Hadoop Technology for Monitoring Patient’s Vital Conditions
Several hospitals around the world have used Hadoop to help their staff work efficiently with Big Data. Without Hadoop, most healthcare systems would be nearly impossible to analyze unstructured data.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta cares for more than 6,200 children in their ICU units. The average duration of stay in the Pediatric ICU varied from one month to one year. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta uses bedside sensors that help them continuously track a patient’s vital conditions such as blood pressure, heart rate and respiration.
This sensor produces very large data, and the old system is not able to store the data for more than 3 days due to storage costs.
In fact, this hospital needs to save the vital signs for analysis. If there is a change in the pattern, then there needs to be an alert for the team of doctors and other assistants. The system was successfully implemented using the Hadoop ecosystem component. Goal: reduce ED visits and hospitalizations for asthma-related events in children.
Valence health: service quality improvement and reimbursements
Valence health uses Hadoop to build a data lake which is the main storage for company data. Valence processes 3000 inbound data feeds with 45 types of data every day. This critical data includes lab test results, medical record data, doctor’s prescriptions, immunizations, drugs, claims and payments, as well as claims from doctors and hospitals, which are used to inform decisions about increasing both income and reimbursement.
The rapid growth in the number of clients and the increasing volume of related data are putting more strain on the existing infrastructure.
Before using big data, they took up to 22 hours to process 20 million records of laboratory data. The use of big data cuts cycle times from 22 hours to 20 minutes, using significantly less hardware. Valence Health is also able to handle customer requests that were previously difficult to complete.
Hadoop in Cancer Medicine and Genomics
One of the biggest reasons why cancer has not been eradicated until now is because cancer mutates in different patterns and reacts in different ways based on a person’s genetic makeup.
Therefore, researchers in the field of oncology state that in order to cure cancer, patients need to be given treatment tailored to the type of cancer based on each patient’s genetics.
UnitedHealthcare: Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
Currently at least 10% of Health insurance payments are related to false claims. Worldwide these cases are estimated to be worth billions of dollars. False claims are not a new problem, but the complexity of insurance fraud appears to be increasing exponentially making it difficult for health insurance companies to deal with.
UnitedHealthCare is an insurance company that provides health benefits and services to nearly 51 million people. The company cooperates with more than 850,000 health workers and about 6,100 hospitals across the country. Their Payment Integrity group/payment integrity division has a duty to ensure that claims are paid correctly and on time.
Liaison Technologies: Streaming System of Records for Healthcare
Liaison Technologies provides cloud-based solutions to help organizations integrate, manage, and secure data across the enterprise.
One of the vertical solutions they provide is for the healthcare and life sciences industry, which must address two challenges: meeting HIPAA requirements and tackling the growth of data formats and representations.