There seems to be a rather low ratio of doctors to patients in the US and it is only getting worse. Although it is wonderful that healthcare is more easily accessible for more people these days, the government did not prepare for the stress more patients would put on doctors.
Becoming a doctor is a long, stressful road of schooling and experience, not to mention even more if you become a specialists. The sheer amount of time and money it takes to become a doctor makes it extremely difficult for the medical industry to provide enough doctors for the amount of patients. Not only are doctors becoming overbooked but they are also not getting paid more for the increase in work that has been demanded of them.
This is a recipe for disaster when it comes to providing acceptable medical care. So how can we attempt to change this dilemma? This is an area where Big Data can be of assistance and hopefully turn things around.
Big Data is already playing a role in the medical industry, allowing for patient information to be more readily available and documented much faster. Harboring patient data in a database that is accessible to all doctors also allows big data analytics to find connections between patients and hopefully pin point problems such as epidemics much faster than before.
With the ease of patient data being accessed through a tablet, doctors no longer have to sift through papers and can address a patient and their needs faster and more efficiently.
Even though big Data can help speed up the process of patient visits and in some ways make a doctor’s job easier, it does not solve the problem that there are simply too many patients per doctor. Hopefully this problem will be resolved with new educational programs for the medical field and help from the government, but until then we can trust that the process of patient care will be greatly enhanced through the use of Big Data.
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