Big Data in Healthcare

Abstract

The era of open data in healthcare is under way. The progress in technologies along with their adoption by the healthcare providers and the maturity of the citizens has brought the healthcare industry to the tipping point. An unprecedented amount of healthcare data is being generated today. This data comes from researchers, healthcare professionals and organizations, and patients. If we can harness this data, it can help us improve our understanding of disease and pinpoint new and improved therapies more efficiently than ever before. Big Data technologies are coming to market in a rapid way. The challenges, however, are still there due to fragmented systems and databases, semantic differences, legal barriers, and others. The hidden and unexploited knowledge is hindered by these barriers. The big data revolution promises a solution both to this situation, as well as to act as a catalyst to the viability of the healthcare systems. This is supported by the numerous efforts and explored in this chapter.