Discussion week 1

Overview

Big Data

This first special topic looks at what "big data" is and how it is being used in organizations today. In particular, the authors "...sought to better understand how organizations view big data - and to what extent they are currently using it to benefit their businesses." Over 1,100 business and IT professionals across 26 industries were surveyed. Although not healthcare-specific, the survey may parallel viewpoints you have seen in your own organizations.

For your first post, summarize the reading and add your thoughts. Feel free to include external sources, experiences from your work, etc. into the discussion.

Reading

The main reading for this is IBM's white paper "Analytics: The real-world use of big data" (IBM 2012): IBM_Analytics2012BigData.pdfDownload IBM_Analytics2012BigData.pdf

Further Readings (Optional)

The Web is an appealing source of data for "big-data" types of analyses. In particular, numerous research projects have analyzed/combined web data in creative ways to create systems capable of detecting disease activity (with varying degrees of success and timeliness). The paper below uses search queries from Google as a means to detect influenza trends. You can see historic flu trends based on search queries at https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=fluLinks to an external site..

Ginsberg J, Mohebbi MH, Patel RS, et al., "Detecting Influenza Epidemics Using Search Engine Query Data," Nature, 457(19): 1012-1015, 2009. Ginsberg_et_al_09_google_influenza.pdf

One primary post (minimum 300 words)