Opportunities and challenges of big data in the healthcare sector

Introduction

Big data is now an essential pillar in healthcare. In the view of Oliver (2021), big data is playing

a huge role in the introduction of the most critical functions in the medical field. Some of these

functionalities consists of telehealth, telemedicine, connectionism and cognitive informatics.

Besides, bioinformatics, computational biology and artificial intelligence are other examples of

functionalities brought by big data in the current medical dispensation. Oliver (2021) continues

to cite that these functionalities have enhanced the decision making process, operational

excellences and timely service delivery in the healthcare. Big data is currently the core

component of nursing informatics. It is primarily concerned with integrating the three primary

fields of computing, information science and nursing care management science (Topaz, 2013).

Electronic Health Records, commonly referred to as EHR is the major application of managing

big data across the healthcare sector. According to (), the concept of EHR is essential in

supporting other technological and nursing care management capabilities such as telehealth and

telemedicine. With big data in healthcare, there comes a lot of benefits or opportunities.

Examples of the opportunities that this paper discusses includes EHR management systems and

biomedical system and how they contribute to decision making in hospitals. However, the paper

also seeks to describe the challenge of privacy as it relates to big data.

The opportunities brought about by big data in healthcare surpasses its risks. The utilization of

Electronic Health Records system in the healthcare sector is crucial for various reasons. First and

foremost, EHR helps healthcare professionals and practitioners to keep up to date with the

patient’s information. Besides, they are effective in helping them maintain an accurate account of

patient records within the hospital. It is effective in keeping all the critical information
concerning the patents and enabling the ability to share the same with key industry players and

shareholders as demand arises. With the EHR system, patient records is effectively managed.

Therefore, it plays a huge role in ensuring that doctors provide the exact patient diagnosis,

appropriate medical prescription services. Besides, Kuliwoski (2011) notes that having a EHR

system is significant in reducing the medical errors, thereby making healthcare provision safer

for both the patients and the healthcare providers. Using EHR systems prevents tampering with

patient records. The system has increased convenience in healthcare administration since records

of all the patients can be easily accessed anywhere in the world. All the patient’s records are kept

in their own profile which promotes operation’s accuracy such as generating patient billing

information and report generation. Dashboards are