Realizing the Potential of Big Data, Analytics

According to the Industrial Global Union, Industry 4.0 is the revolution that will transform companies through the use of smart technology and real-time data to increase productivity in companies. Industry 4.0 is changing the operational, financial, business and productive schemes that exist in different economic units of the country. The health sector is no exception, as Industry 4.0 breaks with traditional schemes and ideas applied to product development and service provision in the medical industry to provide innovation, interconnectivity and evidence-based solutions.

However, the medical sector is reluctant to use new technologies. To include them, it is necessary to eliminate barriers such as price and accessibility. Therefore, companies that work with technology must find the right business model to guarantee the introduction of technologies to the sector, says Isao Hojyo, COO and Co-Founder of Docademic.

The adoption of automation, digitalization and robotization in a harmonious way in the operations of a company are only the first step, but the leading companies in the market are those that can integrate software and hardware solutions to convert transactional and operational data into analytics, according to IBM. In this context, the best and greatest opportunities appear when data analytics and business intelligence take part in this transformation with more accurate information.

Big Data creates opportunities and new ways to seek the transformation of the health system. The industry is moving toward evidence-based medicine and includes information architecture to manage large volumes of clinical, genomic, financial and operational information to improve its performance, according to Oracle.

FAST MANAGEMENT OF DATA

IBM says that data volume doubles every two years and 90 percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years. Therefore, the fast management of data becomes essential for the future of companies since they reveal insights faster than the competition, boosting their chances of being more competitive. A clear improvement in patient outcomes and an improvement in efficiency and cost management are, according to Oracle, the three predictive analytics solutions that will be implemented through the use of Big Data in health. Sergio Mejía, Vice President and Country Manager of Genesys, agrees: “Big Data can play an essential role in compiling information and providing better suggestions to doctors. The pharmaceutical industry could also use Big Data to perform pharmacovigilance. A technological platform can even give suggestions on what OTC medicines should not be mixed, what not to eat or what exercises to avoid.”

Inclusion of Big Data and data analysis transforms the information into different opportunities for the sectors that make up the health industry. In the pharmaceutical sector, “technology focused on the process of medicine elaboration has brought us new molecules that can cure diseases for which patients had no options in the past,” says Arístides Salazar, General Manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Region of Emcure Pharmaceuticals. In terms of genomic medicine, the opportunities are in reducing costly patient tests thanks to the opportunity to analyze large volumes of information that help create genetic profiles. Doctors could also employ these technological developments and improve their clinical diagnosis, says Mejía

Health institutions can also take advantage of the opportunities generated by Big Data. “Franchises of the same clinic or hospital do not communicate with each other. So, if patients change their location, they must again provide all their medical information. Gathering all this data and facilitating access for patients and their doctors will allow the latter to make better decisions,” says Jorge Camargo, Co-CEO and Co-founder of Ecaresoft.

In addition to the benefits for companies and institutions in the health sector, these opportunities are also available to doctors and other health workers. “In the case of Mexico, data can help contain chronic diseases and can help manage patients and give them better follow up. Data can help professionals and patients make better decisions, which will lead to reduced healthcare expenditures,” says Antonio Carrasco, Director General of PLM.

In Mexico, however, the main problem when collecting data lies in the unbalanced participation of the health sectors, both public and private. “The problem for data collection in Mexico is that the private sector does not share information, so there is little data available. It is a great challenge because there is no single procedural code, unlike Brazil, Colombia and Chile that have standardized procedural codes,” says Guillaume Corpart, Managing Director of Global Health Intelligence. On the other hand, according to Xavier Valdez, Director General of IQVIA, another major challenge that Mexico must face when collecting information and including Big Data at a national level is the fragmentation of data as a consequence of the country’s fragmented system. As a result, in Mexico it is more difficult to produce valuable information about the health sector.

Mexico needs to promote the inclusion of these technologies in the health sector since data analysis is a strategy used by many countries to improve medical care in their respective territories. Therefore, it is essential to provide the necessary tools to improve diagnosis and treatments, says Carrasco. Big Data and data analytics can guide hospitals, doctors, insurers and other health-related agents to join the patient journey through the entire health chain, explains Mejía.

PROTECTING HEALTH INFORMATION

According to Norton by Symantec, a specialized company in data protection, privacy results from controlled environments, such as closing the curtains or visiting the doctor behind closed doors. However, in the digital space the idea of privacy is biased because most people do not understand exactly what it means in a digital context. For this reason, data protection is becoming increasingly difficult. IQVIA’s Valdez says Mexico’s data privacy is improving and technologies should also be used to provide greater guarantees regarding the anonymity and encryption of information. Companies must evolve their protection to go beyond physical perimeters and address real-time defenses to protect themselves digitally, adds Cloudera.

Ensuring privacy and security is important for all economic units because in the end there is a person behind everything. According to Infoguard, a cyber security company, talking about information related to the health and well-being of people is twice as important for the health sector because stolen healthcare data is often used on the black market to carry out fraud, to sell information to foreign agencies, to identify other criminals or to carry out illegal financial transactions.

Data privacy in the health sector becomes fundamental at all levels to ensure the safety of the healthcare ecosystem and all its agents.