Saving lives through data crunching?
Big data is changing the healthcare landscape.
Source: Fortune.com
In this video, oncologist and cancer researcher David Agus speaks about how improved data collecting methods are propelling us into a time of rapid advances is healthcare.
With the increasing use of electronic medical records, we're able to observe trends in health that would have otherwise lay hidden.
In a nut shell, here's how it works:
1. When you visit a doctor, various data is input into your electronic medical record as a result of your visit. Your data becomes a part of a larger pool of data.
2. Since doctors are more concerned with knowledge than data, assessing data trends is left to the expertise of data companies. Data companies are not only able to compile all this data, but make sense of it as well.
3. When these data companies observe trends in data, those trends are shared with doctors / medical practitioners and feed into new knowledge to better prevent or treat disease.
What this means for us:
Many people are weary of electronic medical records and how their information is shared. Some of their concerns may be well-founded. On the other hand, data from these same electronic medical records has the ability to drive unparalleled advances in healthcare, thereby saving lives. For those battling cancer or other deadly diseases, these advances may be encouraging.