Northrop Grumann steering big data analytics toward health agencies

With an eye on the mountains of health data that federal and state health agencies are collecting, Northrop Grumann is developing a customizable platform to tie the data sources together and, ultimately, analyze it for the betterment of public and population health.

Known as iHAP, short for Integrated Health Analytics Platform, this early-stage solution is “a way to encapsulate the concepts of large-scale structured and unstructured data, provide the analytical tools, then be able to visualize it so we can provide tailored views,” said Morgan Crafts, director of technology in the civil systems division of Health IT at Northrop Grumman Information Systems.

Crafts explained such views might be intended for a federal official looking at nationwide health trends, a state official seeking data on the impact of policy, or perhaps a government provider like the Veterans Affairs Department drilling down into interventions for individual patients. “It’s less about providing just dashboard data, although we do that, too,” Crafts added. “It’s really about how to improve health outcomes and use evidence from scientific and technical metrics to actually improve health and reduce costs.”