Big Data in Health Care: What It Is, Benefits, and Jobs | Coursera

在這個單身日致力於職業發展。 享受全年的 Coursera Plus，享受 40% 的折扣。
Big data has had a big impact on how health care is provided and received. Learn more about how data is transforming the field and why it matters.
Big data in health care can drive insights, improve outcomes, help cut costs, and drive digital innovation.
The North American market for health care big data analytics is likely to grow at a 19.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2024 to 2030 [1].
Health care professionals use big data to power innovations like predictive disease models and real‑time monitoring.
You can pursue a career in the growing field of big data as a health informatics specialist or health care data analyst.
Learn more about how to apply big data in the health care field. If you’re ready to launch a career in the big data area of health care, then think about enrolling in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. This beginner-friendly program can help you prepare for entry-level IT roles, teaching essential support skills, troubleshooting, and systems like Linux, domain name systems, command-line interface, and binary code in as little as three to six months.
Big data refers to large data sets consisting of both structured and unstructured data that are analyzed to find insights, trends, and patterns. Most commonly, big data is defined by the three Vs—volume, velocity, and variety—meaning that it has a high volume of data that is generated quickly and consists of different data types, such as text, images, graphs, or videos [2,3].
In health care, big data is generated by various sources and analyzed to guide decision-making, improve patient outcomes, and decrease health care costs, among other things. Some of the most common sources of big data in health care include electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), personal health records (PHRs), and data produced by widespread digital health tools such as wearable medical devices and health apps on mobile devices.
Perhaps the most common source of big data in health care is electronic health records (EHRs), which typically contain a patient’s medical history, demographic information, medications, immunizations, test results, and progress notes. While in the past this information was put down in handwritten files that were easily misplaced, difficult to share, and occasionally illegible, today, EHRs allow health care professionals to easily access a patient’s pertinent medical information and provide the best possible care.
Health care data is any kind of data relating to health conditions, quality of life, and health outcomes. Health care data can be produced by everything from wearable devices such as smart watches to patient records and medical imaging technology.
As a result, health data can be used to track the quality of care provided by health care systems, provide guidance for clinical decision-making, and even track risk factors that may be warning signs a patient could develop a particular medical condition, among other things.
Health data provides benefits to patients, health care professionals, health facilities, and health systems.
Data professionals working in health care use big data for a variety of applications, from simply improving the patient experience to creating complex machine learning models capable of diagnosing medical conditions using X-ray scans. To accomplish these feats, data professionals use analytics to effectively manage and analyze big data to produce insights, identify patterns and trends, and guide decision-making.
The impact of big data in health care is huge, and the market has grown to match it. According to research conducted by Grand View Research, the North American market value for big data analytics in health care is projected to grow by 19.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2024 to 2030 [1]. Just as big data lays the foundation for big advances in health care, it has also drawn investment for further growth.
Professionals in health care use big data for a wide range of purposes—from developing insights into biomedical research to providing patients with personalized medicine. Here are just some of the ways that big data is used in health care today:
Employing predictive analytics to create machine learning models that can predict the likelihood a patient might develop a particular disease
Providing real-time alerts to medical staff by continuously monitoring patient conditions within a facility
Enhancing security surrounding the processing of sensitive medical data, such as insurance claims and medical records
Big data has the potential to improve health care for the better. Here are some of the most common benefits of using big data in health care:
Better patient care: More patient data means an opportunity to understand the patient experience better and improve the care they receive.
Improved research: Big data gives medical researchers unprecedented access to a large volume of data and methods of collecting data. In turn, this data can drive important medical breakthroughs that save lives.
Smarter treatment plans: Analyzing the treatment plans that helped patients (and those that didn’t) can help researchers create even better treatment plans for future patients.
Reduced health care costs for patients and health care providers: Health care can cost a lot. Big data offers the possibility of reducing the cost of obtaining and providing health care by identifying appropriate treatment plans, allocating resources intelligently, and identifying potential health issues before they occur.
There are many jobs that use big data analytics in health care. Here are some of the most common that you’ll likely encounter as you explore the field:
Health informatics specialist
Health data engineer
Health care data analyst
Health care statistician
Read more: What Is Big Data Storage? Definition, Uses, and More
Health care is a fast-growing field. According to the US Bureau of Labor Stati