An Overview of Health Analytics

The past several years have seen an exponential increase both in the number of available health information technology (HIT) applications and their use by health care providers [1,2]. This trend is supported by several developments: government stimulation in the way of laws and regulations (e.g., adoption of electronic health records and meaningful use), the proliferation and availability of various applications, the rapidly declining costs of acquisition and storage of structured and unstructured health data, and the adoption of interoperability and standards. It’s not surprising, therefore, that data acquisition is increasing substantially across different types of HIT, including electronic health records [3], clinical decision support systems [4,5], medical imaging [6], public health databases, and the proprietary systems of health care providers (e.g., physicians, insurance companies, HMOs, hospitals, government agencies, and others).