Second Blog

Data Mining on Healthcare

A topic as delicate as healthcare requires a mother load of data about patients, doctors, overhead cost, services provide and many more. The decision-making process becomes more and more difficult the less data that is present.

Like all data, it needs to be analyzed, and in the healthcare industry there are four types of data, patient-centric data which is directly related to patients, aggregate data which is based on performance and resource management data, transformed-based data for planning, clinical and management decision support, and comparative data for health services research and outcomes measurement. Thru the years much of this data is accumulated but information is very low, with the data warehousing of today and data analysis, the healthcare industry can use past data and turn it into better decision-making.

Data in its self has zero organizational value, but when turned into information has the ability to increase profits, control cost/expensed, speed-up services, perform technically sound procedures and maintain high quality of patient care. With the use of data mining; advanced algorithms, multiprocessor computers and massive databases, it is now possible to create patterns from data gathered, turning difficult decisions into a near resemblance of a Standard Operating Procedure. Example, if a doctor is trying to figure out what necessary steps are needed to cure a certain type of cancer attacking a particular part of the body, he would simply check previous data from the data mining, check the patterns that have appeared, age, status, blood pressure, body type, physique, height, weight, symptoms, drugs taken, blood type and the like of that patient and compare it with the other patients suffering from the same cancer, if there are 800 matches for all healthcare centers, than a decision is made quicker and more reliable, thus possibly saving a life, which is the target of a healthcare center.

With data mining, we are now able to use several techniques to further enhance the quality of service, techniques such as decision trees, neural networks, predictive modeling, fuzzy logic, rule induction and many more. These techniques, given data, can help determine survival rates, thus giving priority to patients that are in need of healthcare.

“IBM and the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, the formal name for the Rochester, Minn.-based nonprofit health care organization, announced that they were teaming up in early 2002. After initially putting the medical records of about 4.4 million patients treated at Mayo's three clinics into a DB2 database, IBM and Mayo have spent the past two years developing and testing a methodology for mining the data.”¹ More and more healthcare centers are aiming to be the best at delivering service to the clients.

In data mining it is equally important for the analyzer to have visual capabilities; the ability to spot patterns. Success of data mining tools relies on the ability of the analyzer to evaluate, analyze and detect patterns from the data.

As science of gathering data and mathematics of analyzing data, become more and more advanced, technology comes up with newer computers or software that help the analyzing of this data to a detail. “Mayo researchers will use Blue Gene to do "deep computing and deep science," including mathematical modeling and a simulation of gene structures to help predict the behavior of diseases”², it is truly amazing that the creative mind can turn prototypes into an actual useable product.

From a business standpoint, being able to predict trends or fads is always a plus with always one step ahead of the market and two steps ahead of the competition; as long as the data is well analyzed there is very minimal error. Errors can be made if even though the data was properly analyzed, given that there will always be unforeseen events, there will be slight errors, at the same time if even the errors were accounted for and there are scenarios prepared for these possible errors, than data mining for business will have close to zero errors because everything has been predicted.

In my personal opinion, data mining is definitely a growing technology. I would expect this to bloom in the future to be a “tool of the trade” for all healthcare centers as well as other industries. This technology can be used in various business by predicting the up and downs of the stock market, whether to build more building or less, to be able to understand the movement of several types of clients if passive or aggressive it would be easier to determine how to act, by clustering clients, decisions could be done by cluster instead of by person, this will control costs and maximize profits.

In conclusion, I believe data mining is an asset for the healthcare industry as well as other businesses interested in improving quality of service/products, speeding up service, improving business decision-making, and understanding the different classes of people/clients involved. If I had a long standing business, investing in data mining would be something I would definitely look into.

Reference:

1. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/95115/IBM_Mayo_Clinic_Take_Next_Data_Mining_Step1&2

first blog

IT on Health Care

Competitive advantages of IT (Information Technology) are used to travel information faster, via Internet or LAN. This process is probably the best option since the benefits out weigh the cost. As we move deeper in the Information technology era, we see it as a more convenient option to take. Being able to send numerous files filled with information to different locations, as quick as a click, without getting out of your chair, being able to conduct meetings with doctors capable of creating an antidote for the N1H1 virus, that is located in different countries via webcam. Services, facilities, and schedules of doctors available that are found on the website of the hospital/health center is easily accessible via Internet; the need to drive all the way to the hospital/health center is no longer valid at this IT era, as it costs money and time. Numerous websites can be found on the Internet that helps people cure or patch up minor incidents such as gashes or minor cuts.

A competitive advantage as opposed to the messenger boy running and delivering envelopes and letters to the different locations, and his job being to go up and down the elevator as well as looking for the person whom the letter is addressed to, will take time, also considering the possibility of errors in sending the right information to the wrong person, could be costly to the company. Minimizing this risks and delays is important to be able to attain the needs of the customer.

Health care, or the key word health demands speed and accuracy. The hospitals or health care centers must have data such as x-rays, medicine, doctors, nurses and other materials ready for the patients needs, otherwise be easily attainable. A lack in accuracy in the health department may lead the patient into a worse state or may even cause death. Damaging the sales and reputation of that health care center. This will lead to loss of income or worse, if the reason is the hospital refusing to switch to Information Technology as its source of gathering and dispatching of information.

As I see it, limitations of the Information Technology are that health care centers with this technology must continually update the technology as well as the security (firewalls and the like) to prevent viruses from corrupting all the information. As this has a lot to do with computers, black outs and the rebooting process could take about 2 to 3 minutes. Though it may seem short, when faced with a fatal situation, 2 to 3 minutes is a lot of time.

From my own business point of view, the most important is that the customer is satisfied within the margins of the business. Explaining this further, each business aims for customer satisfaction, in doing so leads to "hardcore" loyal customers that help the business since these customers tend to refer the business to their friends and family, which in turn (is served well) gains new customers. Great service almost most of the time leads to an increase in revenue, and revenue in exchange fuels business into adding faster, better quality service.

In my opinion, the Internet today is clearly the fastest, cheaper, better, acceptable option, and along with this option is Information Technology that relieve past problems pertaining to incidents, in the Health care industry, such as fatalities due to delay of information about the history of the patient, which may lead to mal-practice. These services benefit the customer as well as the industry. Faster more accurate information is moved across different hospitals and health centers with very minimal chance of missing information.

The downsides of viruses and black outs may seem to big of a risk since a single virus has the capability to evolve into a data-erasing virus and that it is expensive to continually update firewalls, and that black outs will cause the hospitals and health centers to purchase a big enough generator to power the entire hospital, at the same time fuel costs money and is expensive. Hospitals feed on customer satisfaction, all these expenses are basically paid for themselves since it is these expenses that bring in the customers and keep the customers, and these expenses are actually assets to the hospital and health center. Firewalls, LAN, Internet, Generators, Faster Wi-Fi, Great Doctors, and Helpful Nurses all contribute to customer satisfaction. A customer satisfied will keep refer and comeback, and that hospital or health center will gain a “hardcore” loyal customer and other potential customers that could be attracted by all these services the hospital or health care can provide.

Changes are one of the biggest, most difficult decisions to make especially for a long system that has been working for that business, in this case the health care industry because employees tend to ask the question “Why?” followed by the line “we are doing just fine”. The business must not be satisfied with “just fine” and must keep growing stronger, for this purpose the mission vision statement is made. In all businesses the goal is to be the best of its industry, or the leading supplier, manufacturer, basically number one in doing this, they keep up with growing technology as it is the comfortable positive attraction for the customer.

A hospital that I have seen that has one of the best services provided for patients is Asian Hospital. Though it is quite costly, patients are paying for both the excellent service as well as the pampering found in high-end hotels.

“The majority of hospitals that I see on Twitter use it as a way to distribute their latest news releases, or updates to their website. Maybe they are using tools such as Twitterfeed (which automates RSS feeds to populate a Twitter stream). These Twitter-feeds are designed exclusively as a way to drive interest to the hospital itself.”¹ Patients that follow there favorite or many hospitals and health centers can quickly see updates; the hospital could also twitter the doctor’s availability.

A brief history on the use of Information technology is that “in the 1970s, using the CD 3200 computer, he developed a hospital information system named HELP (Health Evaluation through Logical Processing), which collected extensive patient data. The system eventually grew to incorporate information from various parts of the hospital-laboratory results, pharmacy prescriptions, nursing care plans, surgery schedules, and accounting-thus creating one of the first integrated clinical systems. This integrative approach to organizing and storing patient information gave health professionals access to the totality of records in one system, which supported their decision making.”² Even during the 1970s Information Technology was already beneficial to the hospitals and health centers.

References:

1. http://hospitalonlinemarketingeducation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-are-hospitals-using

2. http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/4-2006/use-of-information-technology-in-hospitals.html