Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
Big Data has the potential to create various solutions for healthcare concerns, and the ability to do so at a fast rate. The idea of Big Data is to collect and analyze large amounts of data to examine it for patterns and further helpful results. However, Big Data can become quite complex to analyze as it is often collected from a wide variety of sources and can be classified into different types based on the specific field in the healthcare industry (Katarya, 2020). This creates a barrier as the translation of Big Data into implementation science is slowed down, and sometimes never even makes it into the healthcare field. Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
One of the most significant issues that I examined regarding Big Data in the healthcare industry was the Cancer Moonshot program. This program was brought about by the Obama administration in the United States, with the ambitious goal of completing 10 years of cancer research/progress in approximately half the time (Islam, 2020). The scientific process of this project was to utilize large amounts of data including treatment plans, recovery rates, tumor samples, and patient records to identify trends to lead to better patient outcomes (Islam, 2020). Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
Although in theory this project sounded like a fast track to curing cancer, there were many barriers that prevented the project from becoming implemented efficiently. There were many issues pertaining to incompatibility among various healthcare data systems, and patient confidentiality issues (Islam, 2020). There are many laws protecting patient privacy which is beneficial for the patient but can impede the progress of healthcare in certain situations. Lastly, many organizations had invested large quantities of financial resources into creating their own cancer data set. This prevented organizations from being open and willing to share their investment with other companies, as there was no immediate personal return for the organizations themselves (Islam, 2020) Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
Although Big Data would have been helpful in this example, it is clear to see how easily barriers can disrupt the processing and implementation of the data collected into useful methodologies to improve patient care. Sometimes it can be a by-product of a technical incompatibility, while other times it may be related to the loss of a personal gain even at the expense of the betterment of patient outcomes. The variance in source and outcome of the different barriers explain why it can be very difficult to find a solution. Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
One of the most consistently observed gaps in the evidence based to research process is the unwillingness to change approaches. Researchers and consultants may look at the practice gap through either a psychological, systems, or economic approach (Wensing, 2019). Without the flexibility to change approaches based on the needs of the situation, a sensible solution may never be created for that particular issue. An additional gap that contributes to the slow process of evidence-based research is the lack of funding and available resources allocated for research. Without proper funding research implementation could take years just to collect the data necessary for the project, let alone the additional time it would take to analyze and implement the data into an effective process. Knowledge Translation in Health Essay
References
Islam, M., Karim, R., Khatun, M. A., & Reza, S. (2020). A Research on Big Data Analytics in Healthcare Industry. 2020 International Conference on Information Science and Communications Technologies (ICISCT), Information Science and Communications Technologies (ICISCT), 2020 International Conference On, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICISCT50599.2020.9351494
Katarya, R., & Jain, S. (2020). Exploration of Big Data Analytics in Healthcare Analytics. 2020 4th International Conference on Computer, Communication and Signal Processing (ICCCSP), Computer, Communication and Signal Processing (ICCCSP), 2020 4th International Conference On, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCSP49186.2020.9315192
Wensing, M., & Grol, R. (2019). Knowledge translation in health: How implementation science could contribute more. Knowledge Translation in Health Essay