Healthcare Big Data in the Cloud Summary

By Dr. Jim Angle, Trinity Health, and Alex Kaluza, Cloud Security Alliance

In the modern age of technology and all the ways that it impacts our lives, healthcare is no exception. The use of cloud computing, big data analytics, and the move to consumer-focused health care is changing the way health care is delivered. Healthcare Delivery Organizations (HDO) have access to large quantities of data that, if properly analyzed and utilized, can provide tremendous benefit to both the HDO and the patient. This data is coming from sources that were unavailable until recently, including the Internet of Things, electronic health records (EHR), other clinical data, and social media (Faggella, 2019).

"Big data analytics in health care enables analysis of large data sets from large numbers of patients, identifying clusters and correlation between datasets and developing predictive models. The information produced can be shared with other HDOs and research organizations for improving patient outcomes and can also identify health issues and allow for early intervention and treatment. The use of predictive analytics can aid in both patient care and HDO care delivery utilization, which is extremely important in rural areas where health care capacity is limited." — Dr. Jim Angle, Co-Chair of CSA's Health Information Management Working Group.

In response to the rapidly changing environment the Cloud Security Alliance's Health Information Management working group released a new report on Healthcare Big Data in the Cloud. The purpose of the report is to address privacy and security concerns related to processing, storing, and transmitting of patient data in the cloud. This paper examines the predictive analytics opportunities for big data in healthcare, and the privacy and security concerns that come with it. These issues are presented in each phase of the data lifecycle along with methods to mitigate privacy and security compliance concerns. You can learn more by downloading the report here.

This paper was written by the Co-Chair of CSA's Health Information Management working group, Dr. Jim Angle. If you're interested in participating in future research developed by this group, or have an idea for a future research initiative you can get involved here.