Abstract
BackgroundAs the uptake of health information technologies increased, most healthcare organizations have become producers of big data. A growing number of hospitals are investing in the development of big data analytics (BDA) capabilities. If the promises associated with these capabilities are high, how hospitals create value from it remains unclear. The present study undertakes a scoping review of existing research on BDA use in hospitals to describe the path from BDA capabilities (BDAC) to value and its associated challenges.MethodsThis scoping review was conducted following Arksey and O’Malley’s 5 stages framework. A systematic search strategy was adopted to identify relevant articles in Scopus and Web of Science. Data charting and extraction were performed following an analytical framework that builds on the resource-based view of the firm to describe the path from BDA capabilities to value in hospitals.ResultsOf 1,478 articles identified, 94 were included. Most of them are experimental research (n=69) published in medical (n=66) or computer science journals (n=28). The main value targets associated with the use of BDA are improving the quality of decision-making (n=56) and driving innovation (n=52) which apply mainly to care (n=67) and administrative (n=48) activities. To reach these targets, hospitals need to adequately combine BDA capabilities and value creation mechanisms (VCM) to enable knowledge generation and drive its assimilation. Benefits are endpoints of the value creation process. They are expected in all articles but realized in a few instances only (n=19).ConclusionsThis review confirms the value creation potential of BDA solutions in hospitals. It also shows the organizational challenges that prevent hospitals from generating actual benefits from BDAC-building efforts. The configuring of strategies, technologies and organizational capabilities underlying the development of value-creating BDA solutions should become a priority area for research, with focus on the mechanisms that can drive the alignment of BDA and organizational strategies, and the development of organizational capabilities to support knowledge generation and assimilation.
Highlights
As the uptake of health information technologies increased, most healthcare organizations have become producers of big data
To better deal with the diversity of hospitals’ contexts, strategies, organizations and practices, we followed a descriptive analytical method [14] examining all studies in relation to a common analytical framework defining the components of the path from big data analyt‐ ics (BDA) to value. We developed this framework building on the resourcebased view (RBV) of the firm [15,16,17], By synthesizing the knowledge on how hospitals leverage the BDA capabilities they invest in, our ambition is to help health authorities and hospital managers gain a better understanding of how value is created from big data to better steer their BDA strategies and projects
An analytical framework for analyzing the literature To systematically explore the literature on BDA applications in hospitals, we developed an analytical framework building on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm [15,16,17]
Summary
As the uptake of health information technologies increased, most healthcare organizations have become producers of big data. Most HCOs use HIT intensively, becoming de facto producers of large volumes of data in digital form These digital data come from the different components of local health information systems (HIS), including electronic medical records (EMR) and can be either structured or unstructured [3]. As first formalized by Laney [4], big data are “high-volume, high-velocity, and/or high-variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization”. This definition is known as the 3Vs paradigm. The application of BDA is identified as a key success-factor in health care reforms or transformations [7]
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