At the Intersection of Big Data and Healthcare: What 7.2 Million Medical Records Can Tell Us

CCC Blog (08/23/12) Kenneth Hines

Big data analytics have enabled researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's SENSEable City Lab and colleagues at GE Healthymagination to create a powerful visual of the relationships between medical conditions based on the frequency of co-occurrences.  The researchers combed through 7.2 million electronic medical records to create an extensive disease network, which they called the Health InfoScape.  Their first analysis shows the numerous and sometimes unexpected associations that exist for any given condition.  The researchers say their results provided new insights into the close connections of conditions, forcing researchers to reexamine conventional categories about disease classification.  "Our initial results are a mix of the expected and the unexpected--simultaneously challenging and reaffirming our preconceptions of health pattern, within individuals, and across the U.S.," the researchers say.  "Now that we have a succinct picture of the human health network in the country, we will continue our investigation by delving deeper into how the environments around us factor into these results."
http://www.cccblog.org/2012/08/23/at-the-intersection-of-big-data-and-healthcare-what-7-2-million-medical-records-can-tell-us/

Open Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can't

"At one hospital in Kano, Nigeria, 50 babies are born each day. And it’s not exactly prepared to handle them all. “We’re talking about one midwife taking three deliveries at a time,” says Evelyn Castle.

"Nonetheless, Castle aims to create digital records of those births and the hundreds of others happening across northern Nigeria each day — even as she and another American ex-patriot, Adam Thompson, are working to digitize the health records of adults across the region, including polio cases and expectant mothers who’ve tested HIV positive. It’s an enormous task, but the size is only part of the problem. Castle and Thompson are introducing western technology to facilities that aren’t familiar with it — and may not have the resources to handle what they are familiar with.

"'This is one of the most difficult places on the planet — in many ways,' says Andrew Karlyn, who spent three years as the country director in Nigeria for the Population Council, a nonprofit that seeks to improve living conditions in places across the globe. 'If you’ve got a barely literate medical technician, who only knows how to use a microscope to look for Malaria and fill in a form, you can’t just put a fancy computer in front of him and expect him to use it.'"

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