Investigate how big data have been applied to health care

With advances in medical-records management and the ability to store massive amounts of data, opportunities for analyzing health information have grown in almost unimaginable proportions in the past decade. “Simple” databases with thousands of fields now seem quaint and almost irrelevant, as “big data” appears on the horizon as the emerging answer to many health-related data questions.

However, the concept of big data has as many detractors as supporters, and arguments range from big data being the answer to reducing costs and improving health care, to big data potentially leading to discrimination and total government or corporate control.

For this Discussion, you will investigate how big data have been applied to health care, and you will consider the potential use of big data by medium and small local health jurisdictions.

To prepare:

• Select a published article on big data and health care from the Walden Library that discusses trends, potential use, or issues related to using big data in health care.

Post analysis of the article you selected. Include the following in your post:

• A brief description of the published article you selected, including:
  • research question,
  • dataset used, and
  • source of the data.
• An explanation of your position on the use of big data for health care. Do you think that analyzing and using big data in health care can provide crucial answers and lead to great innovation and breakthroughs?
• To what extent do you think that privacy and data security concerns and the potential misuse of data outweigh the potential advantages? Justify your position.
• Using examples, describe how local health authorities can use secondary data sources in their jurisdictions.

Support your post based on the Learning Resources and current literature. Use APA formatting for your Discussion and to cite your resources.

Resources

Lee, C., Famoye, F., Shelden, B., & Brown, A. (n.d.a). Data manipulation. SPSS On-Line Training Workshop. Retrieved from http://calcnet.mth.cmich.edu/org/spss/data_manipulation.htm