The advances in technology in today’s world have resulted in an abundance of resources for data collection. This led to the emergence of big data, in any and every field. The healthcare industry is becoming more and more saturated with big data solutions to solve patients’ everyday health issues to chronic conditions. However, big data could revolutionize the healthcare industry not only in the coming years but forever, making it one of the biggest beneficiaries.

Access to electronic medical records allows doctors to monitor patients’ progress to identify better treatment options. A partnership between Intel and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research is focused on using wearable technology as the monitors that can transmit data to the software bank where it can be analyzed to scan for patterns.

As far as widespread big data goes, countries that offer universal (public) healthcare to the masses stand to be the biggest winners of big data in healthcare. This is because their medical records are all under the control of the National Health Service, as opposed to private healthcare options which would each maintain their own sets of records. However, the United Kingdom’s residents are skeptical of this idea, citing privacy issues despite the evident benefits on healthcare research for future generations. On the other hand, the United States has educated its people about the benefits of big data in healthcare — their issue is the private healthcare system which makes it difficult to compile all of the available data.

The CloudMD Foundation looks to use this big data model to encourage the sharing of electronic medical records of patients in developing nations between patients, local physicians, and remote specialists. Having a centralized shared data system will allow the remote specialists more data and information from which to make the appropriate recommendations to on site physicians for best practices.