Big Data in ehealthcare

Challenges and Perspectives

Nandini Mukherjee, Sarmistha Neogy, Samiran Chattopadhyay

• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351057776
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

This book focuses on the different aspects of handling big data in healthcare. It showcases the current state-of-the-art technology used for storing health records and health data models. It also focuses on the research challenges in big data acquisition, storage, management and analysis.

1

Introduction

CONTENTS

1.1 What Is eHealth?

1.2 eHealth Technologies

1.3 eHealth Applications

1.3.1 Health Informatics

1.3.2 mHealth

1.3.3 Telehealth

1.4 eHealth and Big Data

1.5 Issues and Challenges

1.6 Chapter Notes

The Health-For-All policy of the World Health Organisation (WHO) envisions securing the health and well being of people around the world. The policy was introduced in the 1970s, and based on this policy, new strategies have been adopted in the subsequent years. The policy forms the basis of the primary healthcare strategy of the World Health Organisation, aiming at promoting health, human dignity, and enhanced quality of life.

Gradually, over the years, the role of technologies in the healthcare sector has been perceived. In 1997, an international consultation convened by WHO prepared input on “telematics” for the health-for-all policy of WHO, targeting global health development in the twenty-first century. The report generated through this consultation suggests appropriate use of health telematics in the overall policy and strategy of WHO for major public health purposes [9]. In subsequent years, considering the huge impact of information and communication technologies in healthcare services, the World Health Assembly the decision-making body of WHO adopted a resolution in 2005 to formulate an eHealth strategy for WHO. In this resolution, eHealth is defined as the “cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies in support of health and health-related fields, including healthcare services, health surveillance, health literature, and health education”. In its Geneva meeting in 2005, the WHO executive board recommended to the World Health Assembly, inter alia, “to continue the expansion to Member States of mechanisms such as the Health Academy which promote health awareness and healthy lifestyles through eLearning”. While adopting the resolution, the executive board also considered the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were established following a millennium summit of the United Nations in 2000. The monitoring framework for the MDGs consisted of a list of 18 targets and 48 indicators. Target 18 in this list clearly directs to “make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications” for sustainable development.

1.1 What Is eHealth?

In the report produced by the Executive Board of WHO, eHealth is defined as the use of information and communication technologies locally and at a distance to present a unique opportunity for the development of public health [1]. The report also observes that the strengthening of health systems through eHealth reinforces fundamental human rights by improving equity, solidarity, quality of life, and quality of care.

G. Eysenbach defines eHealth as “an emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business, referring to health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies. In a broader sense, the term characterizes not only a technical development, but also a state-of-mind, a way of thinking, an attitude, and a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve healthcare locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology” [3].

On the other hand, the European Commission defines eHealth as “the use of modern information and communication technologies to meet needs of citizens, patients, healthcare professionals, healthcare providers, as well as policy makers” [7].

According to the description provided by the European Commission [2], eHealth or digital health and care covers the following areas:

• Information and data sharing between patients and health service providers, hospitals, health professionals, and health information networks

• Electronic health records

• Telemedicine services

• Portable patient-monitoring devices

• Operating room scheduling software, and

• Robotised surgery

In 2016, WHO published a survey report on how eHealth can support universal health coverage (UHC) [4]. The survey was conducted in the member states, and a total of 125 countries participated in this survey. WHO observes that provisioning eHealth services can range from gathering and disseminating information to keeping citizens healthy, supporting public health in communities, developing care and support systems in health facilities, and from all such systems, collecting data which is needed for management and the policymakers. According to the report, there is an upward trend in the adoption of eHealth. The adoption of eHealth policy has accelerated since 2005 and almost 58% of countries now have an eHealth strategy.

1.2 eHealth Technologies

Most eHealth solutions are based on five key technologies. These technologies include:

• Websites: Most of the early eHealth solutions are web-based. These solutions are accessed from all over the world for various purposes. For example, in the Netherlands, psychologists prescribe web-based modules to help patients to overcome anxiety disorders or to provide care for the patients with autism. Websites can also be used to deal with many other problems, such as alcohol addiction. In developed countries, websites are used for storing health records (nowadays in the form of electronic health records or EHRs) of patients with chronic diseases, so that this data can be used by the healthcare professionals for future reference.

• Videoconferencing: Patients may want to consult remotely located doctors using videoconferencing. Doctors may also want to visualise the injuries, burns, or rashes on a patient’s body, so that they can prescribe medication more precisely.

• Mobile Apps: Several mobile apps have been developed during the last few years. Some of these are used by the patients for taking care of their own health. These include helping the patients learn relaxation skills, monitoring proper diets, making sure they get enough exercise etc. Apps can also be used by healthcare workers; for example to assist nurses in administering the right medication, etc.

• Wearable Devices: The wearable technologies are used to gather clinical parameters from a patient’s body and transfer the measured parameters to apps which are used to monitor the patients’ health. Many of these wearables can monitor sleep and movement of the patients, and vitals like heart rate, etc., during the entire day.

• Virtual Reality: In some countries, virtual reality (VR) is used within a hospital environment for helping patients to psychologically overcome certain problems. An example of such use of virtual reality is the treatment of people with a fear of flying by exposing them to flight in a VR environment.

FIGURE 1.1: eHealth sensors and medical IoT development platform

FIGURE 1.2: Wearable technology

1.3 eHealth Applications

In the previous sections, the areas covered under eHealth and the associated technologies were mentioned. This section describes recent advances in those areas.

1.3.1 Health Informatics

The term health informatics focuses on the actions related to acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using healthcare information to provide better care to patients. This is an evolving specialisation which is based on information and communication technologies.

On the other hand, health information technology or Health IT refers to the technology tools which are used by the caregivers (physicians and nurses), administrators, patients, and other stakeholders for storage, analysis, and sharing of health information. Such tools include electronic health records (EHR), healthcare apps, prescription generation apps, and several others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States distinguishes between the two terms, mentioning that informatics is “the science, the how and why, behind health IT”. With the help of health informatics, the concepts, theories, and practices are applied to real-life situations [5].

During the last few years, access to medical and health information has exponentially increased, and variety of health information resources have been made available. Alongside these, a number of self-management and risk assessment tools are also available over the Internet. Surveys conducted in United States show that three-fourths of the American population consult online resources to obtain health information [8].

Today a number of tools (generally web-based) are available to store and retrieve medical information of patients, including past histories, medications, treatments, insurance policies etc. for future use. However, in this context, the major challenge is that this data is often distributed on computing resources ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Authors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Electronic Health Records
• 3 Big Data: From Hype to Action
• 4 Acquisition of Big Health Data
• 5 Health Data Analytics
• 6 Architecture and Computational Models for Big Data Processing
• 7 Big Data Storage
• 8 Security and Privacy for Health Data
• Index