What are the big issues in big data?
The question of what is driving, directing and delaying the use of big data technology in healthcare was the subject of a panel at the Health 2.0 Conference, featuring a range of startups directed at problems ranging from smoking cessation to medical imaging.
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A sentiment generally accepted across the board was that none of the entrepreneurs’ companies could exist in their current form, 10 or even five years ago. As one of the panelists noted, 90 percent of the world’s data was generated over the past two years.
Panelists pointed to smartphone revolution, in which nearly every person is carrying around a powerful sensor and data collection source in their pocket, as a major enabler of the trend. The real challenge grappled by these companies is how exactly to parse and utilize the sheer amount of data being produced daily.
“We’re generating millions of unique data points about each patient and the key for us is creating puddles of information – and actionable information – within the oceans of data that exist,” said Sean Handel, the senior vice president for digital pill company Proteus Digital Health.
The march of technology that allows the aggregation and analysis of that collected data is also key.
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“On the analytics side, nobody in healthcare had the ability to aggregate at scale the way that we can today,” said Miki Kapoor, the CEO of clinical data startup Verana Health.“If you can aggregate massive data sets today and look through technology for deep information residing in those data sets then you can change the market.”
Interestingly, even as regulatory bodies are often pointed to as an impediment to innovation among fast moving startups. In this field the companies touted the “enabling environment” provided by the FDA.
“The FDA commissioner has spent a lot of time talking about the use of real-world evidence in clinical trials that’s opened the door for a lot of companies like ours to put a lot of investment into aggregating and mining that data,” Kapoor said.
What is also necessary, according to Kevin Lyman, COO of medical imaging startup Elitic, is a growing understanding from stakeholders of the necessity to effectively utilizing their data.
“More and more institutions will start to realize the value of their data and the value of collaborating with organizations in order to build those things out,” Lyman said. “So really I expect that the most valuable shift for us will be a cultural one more so than a cultural one.”
So what is the braking mechanism for this shift?
For Kapoor, even as the development of data infrastructure has allowed his company to flourish, it also may end up being one of the top limiting factors as the industry continues to grow.
“We think that this new industry around the de-siloization of healthcare is going to create a tremendous amount of technological pressure on existing infrastructure,” Kapoor said. “We don’t have the answers to that today.”
Photo: from2015, Getty Images