DATA VARIETY: THE USE OF BIG DATA IN THE HEALTH INDUSTRY

 Big data needs no introduction however, we must provide one in order to give context to the subject of this article. Gartner’s definition, (circa 2001) (which is still the go-to definition): Big data is data that contains greater variety arriving in increasing volumes and with ever-higher velocity. This is known as the three Vs. In simple terms, big data refers to large, more complex data sets that is derived from a new data source. These data sets are so voluminous that using traditional data processing software alone cannot manage or process them.





Data, of course, has several types which brings us the subject matter. Data is described to be of several varieties and they most found in two ways; this can be structured or unstructured.

Structured type of big data simply put are that data that can be processed, stored and retrieved in a fixed format. Structured data are well organized and they can be readily and seamlessly saved and accessed by using simple search engine algorithms. A clear example of this is an employee table in a company data base which will usually be structured to have the employee’s details, job rank as well as their salaries.

Unstructured data lacks any specified format or structure whatsoever. Unstructured data are very difficult. Time and effort consuming to process and analyze. A good example of unstructured data is Email.


Healthcare is a cross structural system created for the sole purpose of preventing, diagnosing and managing human beings with health-related conditions or impairments.

Depending on the urgency of the case, healthcare is always required at many levels. It is the first point of consultation (for primary care), acute care involving competent physicians (secondary care), advanced medical study and treatment (tertiary care) and particularly rare diagnostic or surgical procedures (quaternary care). In all these aforementioned stages, health practitioners are responsible for various forms of information, such as medical history (data relating to diagnosis and prescription), medical and clinical data (such as imaging and laboratory testing data), and other private or personal medical data.

It is important to note that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced the project "All of Us" (https://allofus.nih.gov/) aimed at gathering data from one million or more patients such as Electronic health records (EHR) over the next few years, including medical imaging, socio-behavioral, and environmental data. Many benefits have been implemented by EHRs for managing modern healthcare-related data. 

Similar to the EHR, the typical medical and clinical data obtained from patients is stored in an electronic medical record (EMR). Collectively, EHRs, EMRs, Personal Health Records (PHR), Medical Practice Management Software (MPM), and many other components of healthcare data have the ability to increase healthcare quality, service performance, and costs, together with reducing medical errors.

Big data in the healthcare industry contains data from the healthcare payer-provider (such as EMRs, pharmacy prescription, and insurance records) along with genomics-driven studies (such as genotyping, gene expression data) and other data collected from the Internet of Things  (IoT)



In particular, in developing a real-time biomedical and health monitoring framework, the creation and use of wellness monitoring devices and related applications that can produce warnings and exchange a patient's health related data with the respective health care providers has gained traction.  A large amount of data is produced by these devices and these data can be analyzed to provide clinical or medical treatment in real time. Healthcare's use of big data shows potential to boost health outcomes and control costs.

By Daniel Taiwo Enisan

Keywords: Big data, Health industry, Data Variety, Structured Data, Unstructured Data


Bibliography

David Gewirtz. 2021. Volume, velocity, and variety: Understanding the three V's of big data | ZDNet. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/volume-velocity-and-variety-understanding-the-three-vs-of-big-data/. [Accessed 19 February 2021].

Journal of Big Data. 2021. Big data in healthcare: management, analysis and future prospects | Journal of Big Data | Full Text. [ONLINE] Available at: https://journalofbigdata.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40537-019-0217-0. [Accessed 19 February 2021].

upGrad blog. 2021. What is Big Data - Characteristics, Types, Benefits & Examples 2019. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.upgrad.com/blog/what-is-big-data-types-characteristics-benefits-and-examples/. [Accessed 19 February 2021].


Comments

  1. Fernando BrambilaApril 4, 2021 at 2:39 PM

    Excellent material. Nowadays, smartwatches are the most popular devices used to track users' vital signs, heart rate, and oxygen levels; these devices can also store the user's data. This function allows the patient to maintain records to present them to medical practitioners during a consultation to get an accurate diagnosis of the situation and prevent any harmful health conditions. If a challenging scenario is presented, smartwatches will call emergency assistance and close contacts even if they are unaware of it. These gadgets have a GPS tracker, which helps emergency responders to identify the user's exact location. As a pioneer in this field, Apple has developed a platform where Apple Watch customers can participate in clinical studies by sharing all of their smartwatches' data storage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saquib HussainApril 15, 2021 at 10:25 AM

    Brilliantly written. It’s not surprising to see Big Data taking even the healthcare sector under its enormously expanding shade. Along with your aforementioned points, Big Data can also benefit the healthcare industry by increasing patient involvement. Patients can easily monitor their own medical records using mobile apps and smart devices, such as keeping track of their heart rate during a workout, as wonderfully explained by Fernando above. All of this information is then processed in the cloud, where doctors can access and study it in order to keep tabs on their patients. Patients will no longer be required to attend medical facilities for less necessary examinations.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aslihan YilmazApril 16, 2021 at 2:38 AM

    Thank you for sharing this topic. Electronic health records allow managing information flow with tools such as healthcare customer relationship management and revenue cycle management. EHR software can be used to reveal the potential of data collected from sources such as paper forms, data viewing, transcriptions, nurse notes, and remote monitoring systems. In addition to these software, RFID technology can be used to control hospital fixtures and medicines. Hospital information system software, mobile applications, telemedicine applications will enable the hospital functions to operate in a coordinated and effective manner.
    It is of great importance in healthcare institutions to secure wireless networks, encrypt portable devices, and educate personnel on data breaches. Personal data processing activities carried out by health institutions within the scope of the measures taken against the epidemic regarding the processing of personal data in the process of combating Covid-19 should be necessary, relevant, limited and measured.

    ReplyDelete

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