Big data in healthcare: A wide look at a broad subject

Healthcare, as an industry, is being held accountable for outcomes that were never before considered. No longer is it a free for service industry but one in which provides are accountable for quality, performance, and satisfaction. How can healthcare utilize the sea of data collected to optimize care for quality, performance, and satisfaction? One answer is to harness the power of that data and to manage the ability to perform meaningful analyses. Clinicians and ancillary providers collect data as they interact with patients each and every day. Data is brought into patient records from laboratories, radiology readings, pathology reports, transfers, and consults where it is integrated and reviewed in order to make informed decisions related to care. Patient and consumer generated data is being gathered and stored on millions of mobile applications or in personal health records. Some patients are passing this data to their care providers in disparate systems and is passed from one provider to another as patients transverse a trajectory of care may or may not be seamless. At each juncture, the data is reviewed, updated, and then transferred onto the next provider or caregiver. At some point in the not too distant future, data describing our homes, schools, workplaces, and communities will be considered as these social determinants of health contribute greatly to the overall health of persons and communities. This will encompass data and information describing poverty, employment, food security, housing, education, incarceration and institutionalization, access to care, environment, and literacy. All of this data will need to be extracted from dissimilar storage points, cleaned and transformed for use, and loaded into a storage repository so that clinicians will be able to gain a fuller picture of how to care better and to deliver that quality.