Big data, big deal

Diets may be "phat" for those who want to feel and look good (and continue that New Year’s resolution) and for those bean counters that need to control spending to stanch the red ink.

But apparently dieting doesn’t apply to information technology. In fact, so-called "Big Data" is the latest mantra to motivate management professionals to foster efficiency and make process improvements. The theory? They just can’t get enough.

One of the newest concepts snaking its way through IT circles is the zettabyte. You thought that 3-terrabyte external drive for file storage was the bomb? That’s so 15 minutes ago. The brainiacs at TechTerms.com define a zettabyte as "2 to the 70th power, or 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes." Or, they say, you can estimate it as "10 to the 21st power, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes."

As a self-confessed notorious electronic file hoarder I probably can fill up one of these within three years (once I finished filling my four other external drives, including a 2TB, 1TB, 500GB and 25GB, and my 8GB "flash" drive). Imagine what a Level 1 trauma center can do that’s equipped with a fully functioning electronic health record fully integrated with the facility’s enterprise-resource planning system – including the supply chain module. Granted those facilities may be few and far between, and adding that last phrase following the hyphen means you can count the qualifying facilities on both hands, among the 5,000-plus in operation. Sad.

But hey! Look on the bright side! The national EHR initiative doesn’t come due for another three years so there’s still time to procrastinate.

Still, the emphasis on Big Data remains curious at best.

There are organizations that chime data and IT are the silver bullets destined to solve all of our organizational problems. Meanwhile, others try to temper that enthusiasm with the dubious claim that data and IT are no panaceas, but just tools in the process. However, many of those organizations hinge their profit and revenue growth on customers buying into the aforementioned hyperbolic superlative.

Extolling the saving graces of data and IT on one hand but trying to turn down the volume on the other seems like false modesty. Of course data and IT represent tools to aid the process. Unfortunately, nonchalance isn’t part of the equation and takes a back seat to passion and zeal.

And then there are the conspiracy theorists who use such Hollywood renditions as "Enemy of the State" to decry Big Brother’s invasion of privacy.

What’s amusing is the lack of context. Supply chain professionals hear ad nauseum that if you show doctors the data you’ll convince them to change their purchasing decisions.

That philosophy is countered by the other oft-heard argument that healthcare professionals gather a lot of data – much of which most likely is "dirty" – that they don’t know what to do with anyway.

Bottom line: Yes, data and IT can change behaviors and improve processes, but … you have to change behaviors and improve processes before you effectively can use the data and IT. It’s a Catch-22 that we seem to have solved 200 years from now in the fictional "Star Trek" world.

In that realm, Starfleet officers simply ask the ship’s computer to give them all the information (not just data, mind you, but logical analysis, too) about some esoteric topic to which the ship’s computer immediately complies. And in this ubiquitous computing atmosphere, the ship’s computer remains integrated with the master database at Starfleet headquarters on Earth, which is light years away.

Yet today in the real word, a surgical technologist faces the challenge of reaching a supply chain manager in the storeroom downstairs to locate a necessary product.

In healthcare, data and IT remain important, and the easier they are to interpret, understand and use the better. But we need to change our behaviors first before we allow – and use the tools to do it for us.

Self-control is how we manage that gaping void between chaos and progress. It’s a big deal that involves big data used to harvest big ideas.