Do you know how Google maps can show you any part of the world? Well, with big data and advanced technology you can view a map of the human body inside out. The healthcare industry is a large one and it took quite some time for new technology to be introduced and implemented in medical classrooms and in hospitals.
Today, we use specialized research equipment that help us see through the layers of the human body, we can analyze the brain, and find new ways to cure illnesses. All with a little help from big data.
Big data is healthcare's saviour and will help in future developments in patient care to an extent we thought unimaginable.
What is Big Data?
Big data, in general terms, is defined as a cluster of complex and detailed data typically used to discover deeper insights and solve problems.
Big data can be leveraged in several ways through patient repositories, monitoring, screening, and more. This data can support doctors and all specialists by helping them understand their patients better and giving them the ability to clearly analyze the data.
This data is tremendously helpful in determining causes and identifying how best to care for patients. It can help with lowering the number of emergency visits, as well.
According to DAP, the big data market is set to grow annually (CAGR) of 22.07 percent by 2022 with a reach of up to roughly $34 billion dollars.
The healthcare system uses electronic records to hold patient information but the data has to be good quality in order for it to function properly when being analyzed for optimum accuracy.
The main purpose of big data in healthcare is to improve efficiency and accuracy. The more health specialists know, the better they can assist their patients and enhance the health system for everyone. It's clear that the healthcare industry is a demanding one that needs to focus on how to speed up processes and find new solutions.
Will big data change the healthcare landscape? Yes, indeed it will. Healthcare is benefiting from big data uses in:
Reducing Costs
Money can be problematic and medical institutions, including hospitals and clinics are troubled with finding ways to manage their finances. The trick to cutting costs, per SmartDataCollective, can be resolved with predictive analysis, a way to analyze a patient's data to identify patterns that enables predictions for the cause of the problem.
A problem they may face is with over or under booking staff that can cost time and energy. With predictive analysis, management can determine the ratio of staff to patients to provide the best service possible. Another interesting thing you may have not known is that there are hospital trackers that patients can wear so they overstay during their hospital visit. This can reduce wait times so everyone can access to their care.
Patient Health
Big data can create a new wave of knowledge with patient health tracking. This collects patient data and relays it to doctors to prevent illnesses from developing and help patients as required.
This type of tracking can include:
- Heart rate monitoring
- Measuring glucose levels
- Blood pressure
- Sleep patterns
The results from monitoring will make it easier for health professionals to uncover the problem and find a solution that best suits the patient. Tracking a patient's health status is imperative as it can prevent bad situations. Better to catch something sooner than later.
This data will mainly be used for population health analytics where it will aid in decision making and improving the service to patients.
Medical Device Innovation
Healthcare has advanced in such a way that it amazes people everyday. New machines and devices can help both doctors and patients understand medical conditions more clearly and they can show us things we may have missed.
According to Orthogonal, the mass adoption of medical software is now pretty much a given.
Cutting-edge software technologies allow us to shift our healthcare system from an old, traditional paper-based one to a digitally innovative learning tool that can answer our most complex questions.
There are 4 subclasses of medical device software:
1. (SaMD) software asa medical device, where a single software can be used as both a medical product and device
2. (SiMD) Software in a medical device where it belongs to a medical product and is found inside the software itself or the medical equipment
3. Software used as an accessory to assist a medical device
4. General purpose software that is not used at all with a medical product
The software used in today's medical realm are highly effective and have proven to work miracles. Not only in the general hospital sector but also in bioinformatics, robotics, genomics, therapeutics, and more!
Product Development
With the help of Big Data, uncovering the best way to develop a medication can become faster. This will not only cut costs on creating them, but will reduce the amount of time it takes to analyze the data and implement that knowledge into the product production process.
This process can take long periods of time for trial and error. Many tests have to be completed before the next steps. Instead of researchers having to struggle with putting numbers together and analyzing them, big data can separate the important from the least important information.
Conclusion
As big data becomes available across the globe in healthcare, it will rapidly change the way we process information and aid our patients.
This information can be detrimental to patients and help doctors decrease the unpreventable situations patients may face.
Big data is so important to us and can assist in so many ways we didn't think possible. Who knows what other technologies and data analysis we could have in the near future!
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of foodworldnews.com
