Healthcare industry deals with huge amounts of data that increases every second.This overwhelming amount of material makes it harder to search information to take important decisions. Big Data can contribute to both insight and confusion. Any data provides huge information and has the capacity to make life easy if used correctly. Organizations need to harness the potential of data by developing a data science strategy.
Data science has a vital role in healthcare industry. Apart from reducing costs, improving profits and saving times, Big data in healthcare has the potential to cure diseases, offer correct treatments, avoid preventable deaths, and more. Healthcare industry data is extremely important as many times lives depend on crucial information. It is required to obtain the correct information, at the appropriate time and given to the right person, in this case doctor and nurses.
BHEF and Gallup, Data Science and Analytics Business Survey – December 2016 –The report about the study states that job postings for data science and analytics skills will reach 2.72 million in 2020 and 79 percent of CEOs are concerned about the growth of their companies that may result from this skills gap. The report also states that by 2021, 69 percent of U.S. business employers will prefer job candidates with data science and analytics skills. However, only 23 percent graduates will be in possession of such data skills.
The development of mobile devices and cloud technology has transformed the healthcare industry. Hospitals and healthcare organizations are in competition to provide effective and enhanced patient care with latest technology.
In the past, the treatments were based on double-blind studies, which were rigorous but did not take patient differences into account. Big data helps in understanding, merging and analyzing the information from data sets of clinical trials, electronic medical records, and observations of experts, patient networks, research and more. Thus based on this understanding treatment can be more effective.
Healthcare Data comes in following areas–
Clinical Data
Pharmacology Data
R& D Data
Patient care Data
Data scientists are hired in health care organizations to realize benefits of data gathering and data analysis for this industry. This science improves outcomes by automating in fast, precise and practical ways. With Big data you can predict epidemics, make patient stays comfortable and offer the best course of treatment.
By using workforce optimization analytic s projects the hospitals can improve efficiency, patient and staff satisfaction by re-scheduling nursing shifts. It can be also be used to move equipment as X-Ray machines. These tasks require a lot of planning and precision and make use of huge data which is the responsibility of the data scientist. The right data can help in everyday activities such as balancing the supply and demand of emergency room staff by appointing the right nurse services to patient for expected conditions sat the correct time. This can help in reducing costs for healthcare organizations.
Any effective data strategy for hospitals and healthcare has the following components
Big Data can also help in designing specialized hospital rooms like Emergency rooms by optimizing the physical layout. Big Data can give inputs and recommendations that can help hospitals to build efficient facility that would give doctors and nurses to have more time to help patients thus improving patient experience and staff satisfaction.
Healthcare organizations and hospitals all over the world are looking for solutions to reduce repeat visits, reduce cost and improve patient outcomes. Modern technology of computational science and tools can help to achieve all this and result in massive savings.