Big Data and Business Analytics

Saving Lives with Big Data • 127

of sepsis but also for several of the new indicators that were uncovered by

the Booz Allen– Mercy study.

For example, says Dr.Smith, the data analysis revealed that an impor-

tant indicator may be when the heart rate and respiratory rate go up at the

same time—something doctors had not been fully aware of. Although

the simultaneous rising of the two rates doesn’t by itself indicate sepsis, he

says, it does show that the patient is experiencing the kind of distress that

sepsis can cause. And it can help alert doctors that a patient not known to

have sepsis might have the condition, or that a patient already dia ...