The "Big Data" Revolution In Health Care
Center for US Health System Reform
Business Technology Office
The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare
Accelerating value and innovation
January 2013
Peter Groves
Basel Kayyali
David Knott
Steve Van Kuiken
Contents
The ‘big data’revolution in healthcare: Accelerating value and innovation
1
Introduction1
Reaching the tipping point: A new view of big data in the healthcare industry
2
Impact of big data on the healthcare system
6
Big data as a source of innovation in healthcare
10
How to sustain the momentum
13
Getting started: Thoughts for senior leaders
17
1
The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare: Accelerating value and innovation
Introduction
An era of open information in healthcare is now under way. We have already experienced a decade of progress in digitizing medical records, as pharmaceutical companies and other organizations aggregate years of research and development data in electronic databases. The federal government and other public stakeholders have also accelerated the move toward transparency by making decades of stored data usable, searchable, and actionable by the healthcare sector as a whole. Together, these increases in data liquidity have brought the industry to the tipping point.
Healthcare stakeholders now have access to promising new threads of knowledge. This information is a form of “big data,” so called not only for its sheer volume but for its complexity, diversity, and timeliness.1
Pharmaceutical-industry experts, payors, and providers are now beginning to analyze big data to obtain insights. Although these efforts are still in their early stages, they could collectively help the industry address problems related to variability in healthcare quality and escalating healthcare spend.
For instance, researchers can mine the data to see what treatments are most effective for particular conditions, identify patterns related to drug side effects or hospital
Business Technology Office
The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare
Accelerating value and innovation
January 2013
Peter Groves
Basel Kayyali
David Knott
Steve Van Kuiken
Contents
The ‘big data’revolution in healthcare: Accelerating value and innovation
1
Introduction1
Reaching the tipping point: A new view of big data in the healthcare industry
2
Impact of big data on the healthcare system
6
Big data as a source of innovation in healthcare
10
How to sustain the momentum
13
Getting started: Thoughts for senior leaders
17
1
The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare: Accelerating value and innovation
Introduction
An era of open information in healthcare is now under way. We have already experienced a decade of progress in digitizing medical records, as pharmaceutical companies and other organizations aggregate years of research and development data in electronic databases. The federal government and other public stakeholders have also accelerated the move toward transparency by making decades of stored data usable, searchable, and actionable by the healthcare sector as a whole. Together, these increases in data liquidity have brought the industry to the tipping point.
Healthcare stakeholders now have access to promising new threads of knowledge. This information is a form of “big data,” so called not only for its sheer volume but for its complexity, diversity, and timeliness.1
Pharmaceutical-industry experts, payors, and providers are now beginning to analyze big data to obtain insights. Although these efforts are still in their early stages, they could collectively help the industry address problems related to variability in healthcare quality and escalating healthcare spend.
For instance, researchers can mine the data to see what treatments are most effective for particular conditions, identify patterns related to drug side effects or hospital