Data Analytics Applications in Healthcare, Hospitality, Marketing, and Security

The healthcare industry produces an outsized amount of knowledge, including medical records, compliance with regulatory requirements, and patient information. Most of these records were stored in a hard copy file system, but the current trend targets digital data. Driven by the need for resources and the ability to enhance the quality of healthcare that currently reduces costs, these big data sets hold the promise to support a large range of health and medical services. Thus, big data in healthcare focuses on digital data sets that are so large and sophisticated that it's almost impossible to manage with conventional software or hardware, nor will they easily be operated by conventional information management methods and tools. This chapter discusses big data analytics in healthcare, how it could be a game changer in reducing the cost of treatments for hospitals and patients, help in treating chronic diseases by suggesting methods as simple as lifestyle changes, and how it could change the whole healthcare industry.