Embracing Big Data and Data Analytics

Shifting gears, it is vital to address how healthcare industries have already benefited from big-data and the opportunities still to come. Leaders in the healthcare industry have recognized these opportunities and have primed their organizations in exactly the ways previously discussed to embrace and reap the benefits big-data and analytics have to offer. With the advent of electronic health records (EHR), the volume of U.S. healthcare data is reaching yottabyte scale (1024). These complex datasets are comprised as images, insurance claims, clinical data and therefore, a variety of datatypes that are difficult to store, manage, and interpret. However, if organizations manage to adequately take advantage of big-data, the potential to "improve care, save lives, and lower costs" are significant. When organizations embrace capacities to synthesize and aggregate big-data by creating cultures of openness with data-literate employees, insights can lead to better informed decision making and better health outcomes. Our future will undoubtedly involve real-time decision making using individual and population data to best inform physicians of the most efficient and effective, cost and outcome, treatment of patients.