big data

If you think it's hard to keep up with all the new software and hardware innovations, imagine doctors trying to stay abreast of medical advances. "While wonderful new medical discoveries and innovations are in the news every day, doctors struggle with using information and techniques available right now," writes Leo Anthony Celi, assistant professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, in the Conversation commentary Improving patient care by bridging the divide between doctors and data scientists...

Read More »

If you’re one of the 1,000 lucky people worldwide who are: 1. Accepted to Harvard; 2. Successful in scoring a seat in Professor Michael Sandel’s wildly popular Justice course there; and 3. Wealthy enough to pay the $7,500 in tuition that it effectively costs you … Congratulations! Read More »

To achieve the the triple aim in healthcare (better, cheaper, and safer), we are going to need intensive monitoring and measurement of specific doctors, hospitals, labs and countless other clinical professionals and clinical organizations. We need specific data and specific doctors. Read More »

Remember when Google search results were first used to predict the flu? Now, data from mobile phones, social media and even grocery scanners has been shown to be effective at identifying patterns in epidemics. Standard travel data collection methods, however, are limited and often provide outdated data. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are nearly ubiquitous, and can serve as a rich data resource. Call data, which automatically provides time and location details, can help in understanding human mobility...

Read More »

Big data is transforming biomedical research, National Institutes of Health director Francis S. Collins writes in a blog post announcing an initiative called Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K).  To illustrate his point, Collins points to the work of Atul Butte of Stanford University, a NIH-funded researcher looking among mountains of existing data to find new links among genes, diseases and traits.

Read More »

The National Institutes of Health plans to recruit a new associate director to examine the potential for vast new troves of biomedical research data related to genomics, imaging, and electronic health records, the institute said Thursday. Read More »

A year ago the President announced the launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative to accelerate a new era of medicine that delivers the right treatment at the right time to the right person, taking into account individuals’ health history, genes, environments, and lifestyles. Precision medicine is already transforming the way diseases like cancer and mental health conditions are treated. Molecular testing for cancer patients lets physicians and patients select treatments that improve chances of survival and reduce adverse effects...

Read More »