Trends in the overall IT landscape are often emulated by industries that can benefit most from technological advancements. Health care often leads this charge, as medical centers adopt new business systems to improve overall processes, which ultimately enhances patient care.

Big data is growing in businesses across a wide range of industries, and health care is no exception. The ability to leverage information to improve processes is extremely valuable in the medical realm, as it can give providers new insights that ultimately improve operations and the quality of service they provide the public. Changes that enhance care are more likely to be successful if they are initiated based on data.

However, much like businesses in other areas, health care providers are finding it difficult to make the best use of their information, although they are certainly interested in increasing their usage of big data. A study conducted by MeriTalk found that 63 percent of health care organizations say big data will help track and manage population health more efficiently. Additionally, 60 percent said big data analytics will enhance the ability to deliver preventive care.

This shows that most people in the industry understand how big data can work for them. Unfortunately, they can’t seem to get it to do that yet. Less than 5 percent of respondents said they were prepared to manage big data.

A recent Forbes article addressed this issue, stating that there are many opportunities for health care providers to use their information, but they have to think a certain way about how to analyze it.

“To successfully exploit Big Data, organizations need to think differently about how they approach the analytics problem,” wrote Bill Schmarzo, the article’s author. “The technology exists to build individual patient profiles by each major illness or disease area. In much the same way that we’re starting to see credit card companies build individual card member profiles by product categories, healthcare providers now have the ability to build patient models by major disease or illness classification.”

There are plenty of ways health care organizations can leverage their information to improve overall care, and decisions designed to do so often have to be backed by hard data. Building a new hospital requires a thorough review of existing data, such as population and the current crowd situation at other local hospitals, before a building can be constructed. Ultimately, it’s important to know if the facility will be used before money and resources are used to build it.

Those who understand the benefits of business intelligence and are able to effectively extract, transform and load pertinent information will be able to make the most use of their data.