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Big Data’s Role in Health Informatics: Opportunities for Innovation

Quick Highlights:

  • Health informatics combines data management and healthcare to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.
  • Big Data involves gathering, storing, analyzing, and using data to enhance healthcare services.
  • Challenges include protecting private data and maintaining data integrity.
  • Future trends include AI, predictive analysis, remote monitoring, and telemedicine.

Table of contents

Health informatics is where data management meets healthcare. This field uses Big Data to improve patient care, lower costs, and guide future decisions. By studying health informatics, you can learn to handle and analyze large amounts of health data, create new patient management systems, and contribute to technological advancements in healthcare. This article will explore:

  • how health informatics uses Big Data
  • the challenges faced
  • future trends

We hope this information helps you decide if a career in this growing field is right for you.

Related:

What is Big Data?

Big data is a term that covers how businesses and individuals efficiently use data. This involves the way we gather, store, analyze, view, and use data. Data analytics in health care uses Big Data in the same way, but the focus is the public good of providing healthcare. 

Whether you work in the academic or professional sphere, you will find jobs using big data in health informatics. Health data science involves gathering individual data with health records and checkups. From there, it is stored in patient records for patients to use and in large data banks that will allow institutions to research data-driven healthcare solutions. Health informatics data leads to:

  • new patient data management programs
  • devices that can view your health information
  • other technological advancements in healthcare

Core Functions of Big Data in Health Informatics

Receiving and storing healthcare data is the first step in using Big Data in healthcare. Institutions need to create secure programs to protect this data, allowing professionals to access it safely. Protecting personal data from misuse or theft is a critical part of using Big Data in healthcare.

Big Data Scans and Stores Information

To use this data in a meaningful way, the data needs to be:

  • scanned
  • valued
  • organized

Then it is ready to be analyzed. Health information technology uses data to create tools that help businesses and healthcare providers serve their clients and patients better. By analyzing clinical data, researchers develop new technologies and processes to address medical problems more effectively.

It Allows Data Visualization and Interaction 

All this information needs to be visualized and interacted with by the end user. From here, patient data management comes full circle. Users can view the information in a way they can understand. When you check the results of your blood draw online and see an alert, you are benefiting from the intersection of personalized medicine and Big Data.

Impact of Big Data on Healthcare

As a health informatics major, the primary goal of your chosen field is to improve patient outcomes. By identifying patterns and irregularities in data, healthcare professionals can provide their patients with useful and actionable information. Health information technology has improved lives by giving healthcare providers access to increasingly more accurate and useful diagnosis and treatment data.

Better Efficiency and Lower Costs

Behind the scenes, the role of Big Data in healthcare does a lot of heavy lifting. The software that a technician uses is built upon its ability to:

  • access information
  • allow your provider to use it
  • get the patient the support they require

By reducing costs and increasing efficiency, data analytics in health care can save lives.

More Personalized Medicine 

Healthcare predictive analytics allow providers to create a roadmap for their patients to understand. Personalized medicine is based on health history and genetic profiling. It will eventually allow doctors to address medical issues before they develop. By analyzing data from millions of patients, it identifies common precursors to improve your healthcare outcomes using information from others.

Challenges in Integrating Big Data In Health Informatics

Perhaps the greatest struggle with storing data is securing it. Healthcare data is private, so this information needs to be protected. According to Statista, companies are spending an average of 12% on their cybersecurity budget because this valuable data is a target.

Ensuring Data Integrity 

Another rising issue is the question of data integrity. Data analytics in health care continues to advance, but analytics is only as good as the underlying data. Self-reported data is often biased. This means that some analysis may be based on incorrect information. As a health informatics major, you can learn new ways to ensure data integrity and reduce bias in patient-provided information.

Bridging the Gap Between Healthcare and Data Management

Successful patient data management is based on the ability of healthcare professionals to use programs written by computer programmers. The gap between experts in healthcare and data management sometimes hinders the use of Big Data in health informatics. Overcoming this challenge requires more people who know about health informatics, data analytics, and healthcare. 

Every year, new technologies are developed that have an unintended impact on other fields. For example, data analytics wasn’t created with the specific intention of supporting a patient seeking relief. Now, it is a necessary component of any treatment plan. As a health informatics major, you will be at the cutting edge of the development and implementation of new data collection technology.

The advent of artificial intelligence will impact the role of Big Data in healthcare. Artificial intelligence (AI) is estimated to reduce healthcare costs in 2026 by $150 billion according to the National Library of Medicine. This number will only increase in the future. Data analytics provides students with many opportunities, especially if they are passionate about machine learning and artificial intelligence. 

Other than AI, there are other exciting technologies and developments in this field. 

  • Predictive analysis through data 
  • Remote monitoring of patients’ care
  • Wearables and healthcare monitoring
  • Reduction of medical errors
  • Adoption of telemedicine

Learn About a Future in Health Informatics

As you consider your future career, think about the role of Big Data in health informatics. The technologies associated with this field are expanding into previously unknown areas of data storage, analysis, and interactivity. As individuals better understand the importance of cybersecurity, the role of Big Data in healthcare also becomes more apparent. 

With a health informatics major, students can learn about patient data management systems. Through training, you can gain a rewarding career that allows you to shape the future of healthcare and data management.