As soaring health budgets continue to cause pain for governments and medical care providers, relief may be in sight thanks to big data.
A new study by Lux Research found that advanced big data and analytics technologies are poised to help rein in runaway healthcare costs. The report “Industrial Big Data and Analytics in Digital Health” determined that deeper integration of relevant data will make the delivery of many therapies more affordable.
“Whereas solving many past healthcare problems seemed to be a matter of scientific discovery, health policy, or adequate funding, today’s most pressing problems are due to a lack of information – or lack of understanding of what to do with it,” said Lux Research VP Mark Bünger.
“Data and analytics technologies are now showing measurable benefits to cost and patient outcomes, and partnerships like Apple-IBM, Salesforce-Philips, and Cisco-University of California in San Francisco are forming to put them into practice,” he said.
The participation of enterprise big data and analytics vendors will help create several major impacts on healthcare delivery according to Lux.
Big data can personalize therapy delivery
Firstly, it predicts that big data and analytics will aid personalized therapy delivery, leading to reduced costs and better health outcomes when battling the most severe diseases. It will achieve this by using such cloud-based analytics as Molecular Match that will enable faster decision-making.
Lux also anticipates that artificial intelligence (AI) will create more powerful methods for analyzing huge datasets. AI will enable machine vision that can study patient scans for disease and will power robots that monitor patients.
Lastly, Lux sees big data as unlocking sources of additional revenue and cost reductions for hospitals. Cost cutting will come from semi-automated systems that can target expensive medical interventions much more efficiently.
Meanwhile, additional revenues will emerge as data enables improved resource allocation based on conditions and volumes of patients.
The report comes as health care providers are looking for other technological solutions like smart medicines to help reduce escalating costs.
