Using Big Data to Reduce Hospital Readmissions and Improve Patient Outcomes

With the movement to increase the availability of healthcare in the United States, a major hurdle for the next generation is to decrease its overall cost. The folks at Ascension Health have approached this issue by looking to decrease the number of hospital readmissions through big data analytics.

By personalizing treatment plans and anticipating common issues that may arise for each individual patient's risk factors and diagnoses, hospital readmission numbers can be drastically decreased. As research continues and more data is gathered, personalized medicine can achieve more precise predictions of patient outcomes. Proper patient assessment and treatments will be given more often if medicine is specified to the individual.

With the emergence of big data in the realm of healthcare not only will patient outcomes be improved, but also overall healthcare costs will decrease due the efficiency of more personalized patient care.