DIGITAL DISRUPTION
Special report :
Gigabit takes a look at the evolving use of Big Data in the healthcare industry and its enormous value in both a monetary and clinical sense
60
We generate data about ourselves all the time , the acquisition and interpretation of which is big business . In many cases , this data may be fairly trivial or inconsequential . In others , this may be the most private and confidential data of all – about our health , for example . Regardless of what type it falls under , there are businesses out there that will want it .
The question of data in healthcare is timely considering the UK ’ s exit from the European Union , and the potential for healthcare data to be used as a bargaining chip in future trade deals with the United States and others .
The UK ’ s National Health Service ( NHS ) is one of the oldest and most established public healthcare systems in the world . Its practice of tying data to an individual NHS number means its data provides a broader account of patients ’ health , and with the NHS increasingly digitising old records , a chronologically longer one too . EY has estimated the data to be worth almost £ 10bn .
APRIL 2020