Читать книгу Computational Intelligence and Healthcare Informatics - Группа авторов - Страница 22

Sebastian Thrum, a computer scientist, once said, “Just as machines made human muscles a thousand times stronger, machines will make the human brain a thousand times more powerful.” This statement is the seed of what big data and ML is doing to healthcare today impacting human lives like never before opening new doors of possibilities and for much good.

In this digital era, massive amounts of data are being generated every moment, the digital universe which was about 130 exabytes (EB) in 2005 has expanded to about 40,000 EB in 2020 [24]. Such huge amount of data, known as big data, is a storehouse of critical information which can transform the way we provide healthcare services.

Figure 1.4 Sources of big data in healthcare.

Large amounts of data are generated in healthcare services, and these are from sources (Figure 1.4) as diverse as government agencies, patient portals, research studies, generic databases, electronic health records, public health records, wearable devices, smart phones, and many more. All these sources generate data in different formats which need to be not just merged but also made available instantly when needed; this is where big data and ML together empower healthcare services.