Exploring the potential benefits of big data analytics in providing smart healthcare

Abstract

Big Data is an emerging technology in different sectors. It refers to massive amount of heterogeneous data produced from many sources. Big data analytics is the process of analyzing a huge set of data to build and discover meaningful patterns, correlation that will add value to the corresponding business through predictive decisions and other useful information. The health industry every years generate big data in different formats. The healthcare data need analysis to make decisions and forecasting but there is lack of understanding of the potential of big data in health industry. This paper aims to explore the potential values of big data analytics in healthcare to enhance the efficiency and smartness of healthcare services. In addition, conducting an experiment on the dataset exported from an online healthcare research repository on a big data analytical topic. The study has been carried out by conducting literature review big data analytic and referring datasets from online healthcare research repository. The research concludes that providing evidence-based treatment, making predictive analysis and providing efficient healthcare service are the main potential benefits of applying analytics in healthcare. However, ensuring anonymity of patients’ information and educating healthcare staff about the role of analytics in healthcare are essential steps before adopting such technologies. This research is conceptual in nature based on existing literature reviews and secondary data. In future primary data would be used to understand the relevance of big data analytics in healthcare.