Dr. Obumneke Amadi: Big Data and Health Care

Big Data and Health Care

Big data by nature, is made up of large details of unstructured or raw data that cannot be

processed by using a conventional, largely relational data processing methods. Datasets are

highly complex to characterize in big data. Moreover, data can be characterized according to

four dimensions: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. In big data, thousands or millions of

data can be processed in a fraction of time and cost, however connecting to big data are

considered a promoter in supporting the improvement of quality and efficiency of healthcare

delivery. Through Big data the assessment of the benefits and risks a public health issue can be

achieved by just using data from a limited number of health care sources in addition, it is a

promising development that has the capability of improving healthcare interventions (Liyanage,

de Lusignan, Liaw, Kuziemsky, Mold, et.al, 2014).

Description of the Published Article I Selected

The article I selected is: Bringing Big Data to Personalized Healthcare: A Patient-

Centered Framework (Chawla & Davis, 2013). The researchers expressed their concerns about

the unsustainable costs and enormous amounts of under-utilized data, they pointed out that health

care needs more efficient practices, research, and tools to connect full benefits of personal health

and healthcare-related data. They gave example of the usefulness of having a big data such as

having a personalized healthcare, and demonstrated its applicability to positive patient-centered

outcomes e.g. reducing re-admission rates. The authors concludes that CARE system was

developed to serve as a proactive big data-driven computational aid for physicians assessing the

disease risks for their patients (Chawla & Davis, 2013).

My Position on the Use of Big Data for Health Care

Analyzing and using big data in health care can provide crucial answers and lead to great

innovation and breakthroughs because, most research apply the use of secondary data to

investigate and answer their research questions and hypotheses. Personally as a scholar student, I

have throughout my scholar-practitioner assignment and projects used big data’s to retrieve

variables that represent my project topic to answer my research questions (Shaw, 2014).

Moreover, through the various methods that I have employed to analyze my data’s, I have

always come up with a reasonable and reliable outcome association of my observed population.

In general, the potential public health uses big data to explore a population or diseases of interest

e.g. epidemiologists collect information on social and sexual networks to better identify the

spread of disease and even create timely warning systems(Shaw, 2014).

To advance in effectiveness and innovation of healthcare security and delivery,

researchers are combing government and clinical databases to establish the best and cost-

effective process of improving detection of and response to infectious disease outbreaks. This

process will lead to better treatment options and the information’s obtained could transform

health care policies (The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2015). With the progression

of big data usage, a lot can be achieved, such as an improved statistical and computational

methods that is capable to solve huge problems faster than a conventional computational

methods would (Shaw, 2014).

Privacy and Data Security Concerns

Because there are ethical rules guiding the process of conducting research, privacy and

data security concerns and the potential misuse of data do not significantly outweigh the

potential advantages of using data because, researchers may seek to collect, use, share and access

different types of information about participants depending on the type of research they are

conducting(pre.ethics.gc.ca, 2013). Most big data are de-identified with no privacy and security

concerns, but data that are identified must follow the ethical policies regarding such type of data

practice. Moreover, to attain the privacy and security of data use for both identified and de-

identified data, data information’s can be coded information or made anonymous

(pre.ethics.gc.ca, 2013).

Theoretical Evidence of Big Data Usage

Based on evidence from available literature on the possibilities of manipulating big data

and the feasibility & utility of its use by medium and small local health jurisdictions, information

from many patients can be combined locally and globally thereby leading to more effective and

great research, for example, “a traditional research organization might do a study based on

collecting and analyzing data from 500 doctors, requiring significant funding. We can do these

analyses in half an hour, producing real results that can change policy” (SAS Institute Inc., n.d).

References

Chawla, N. V., & Davis, D. A. (2013). Bringing big data to personalized healthcare: a patient-

centered framework. Journal of general internal medicine, 28(3), 660-665.

Liyanage, H., de Lusignan, S., Liaw, S. T., Kuziemsky, C., Mold, F., Krause, P., ... & Jones, S.

(2014). Big Data Usage Patterns in the Health Care Domain: A Use Case Driven

Approach Applied to the Assessment of Vaccination Benefits and Risks: Contribution of

the IMIA Primary Healthcare Working Group. Yearbook of medical informatics, 9(1),

27.

pre.ethics.gc.ca (2013). Panel on Research Ethics: Privacy and Confidentiality

http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/chapter5-

chapitre5/

Shaw, J. (2014). Why “Big Data” Is a Big Deal. Retrieved from

http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/03/why-big-data-is-a-big-deal

SAS Institute Inc. (n.d). Data-driven health care. Retrieved from

http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/articles/analytics/data-driven-health-care.html

The President and Fellows of Harvard College (2015).The promise of big data. Retrieved from

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/spr12-big-data-tb-health-costs/