While the healthcare industry is certainly about helping people and making a difference, it’s also important to note that many aspects of this industry necessarily need to operate like a business. In many respects, clinics and hospitals are only efficient as the data they’re able to collect. Not only to help their patients, but also to control costs for medical equipment, staffing, etc.
Here are a few ways by which data mining can help the healthcare industry and especially patients.
Affinity Analysis
When dealing with this sort of analysis in healthcare, the affinity method will look at a range of data concerning patients’ history and see the sorts of medications people take, past procedures they have needed, and other factors that will help hospitals and clinics make better informed decisions.
Chart Abstraction
Chart abstraction is the process by which information is collected about a patient’s medical records, and that information is transcribed into discrete fields within their new EHR. This is a safe and secure way to collect a patient’s medical history to help them receive better, more focused treatment.
Database Marketing
This works differently in the healthcare industry than in regularly businesses, but it’s still an important data mining practice in healthcare. It basically looks at patterns and demographics. Imagine something like a flu outbreak and being able to find commonality between patients. The world runs on data, and the healthcare industry is no exception.
