Big Data, Data Mining, and Machine Learning: Value Creation for Business Leaders and Practitioners

CHAPTER 12 Case Study of a Major Health Care Provider

The health care industry is seeing an increase in the data it has available and the expectation from customers and shareholders that this data be used to improve customer satisfaction, improve patient care, and return a higher value to shareholders.

The increase in data comes from several sources. The first is from electronic medical records. In years past, the information available to health care providers would be a claim form (either paper or electronic) that was processed to reimburse physicians for their services. Then prescription drugs were added so that some initial analysis could be made and help save patients from potentially harmful drug interactions. But in this era of electronic medical records, information far beyond the billing codes can be processed and analyzed. Physician notes, radiology reports, and transcribed phone calls to on-call nurse hotlines are all now potentially available. A major challenge to data of this type is that it is largely unstructured, which poses potentially significant challenges in productively using this data for improved decision making. In fact, it is estimated that nearly 80% of all data is unstructured, and medical records can be some of the hardest to work with. Due to its own set of shorthand and abbreviations, extra care must be taken in organizing this information.

This case study is illustrative of the win-win opportunities that exist for both businesses and consumers. ...