Healthcare’s Big Data Opportunity
Summary
As the quantity of data we generate rapidly expands and we continue to develop the computational power to store it, health authorities will be able to gather more information about their patients in a single year than has been open to them in all history. Jersey City’s Medical EMS recently teamed up with Bradshaw Consulting Services to improve the hospital’s ability to respond to emergency calls, where a minute can often mean the difference between life and death. Unlike the U.S., Britain has fallen foul of a big data panic, fueled by a misguided belief that using anonymized patient records to offer improved healthcare would mark the first step on the road to the dystopian futures portrayed in 1984 and Brave New World. Earlier this year, as a result of widespread public pressure, the NHS suspended its plans for Care.data, a central stash of patient records that researchers said could transform UK healthcare. Calls for Care.data to be shelved increased rapidly as people grew twitchy about data security, while Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA served as the ideal backdrop for civil libertarians arguing that citizens were signing away their privacy.
