Big Data and Health

The convergence of advances in genomics, sensor and device technologies, computing and social media is forging a new era of precision medicine in which analysis of large scale data on disease in individuals and populations, their environments and their behaviour will drive increasingly personalized (precision) interventions to improve diagnosis, treatment and clinical outcomes and progressively shift the focus of care from reactive responses to active disease to proactive actions to mitigate risk and prioritize health over managing illness. Despite the logic of using large scale data analytics to improve health outcomes and control cost, implementation faces significant technical, economic, organizational and cultural barriers.