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Making sense of big data in health research: Towards an EU action plan

2016; BioMed Central; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1186/s13073-016-0323-y

1756-994X

Charles Auffray, Rudi Balling, Inês Barroso, László Bencze, Mikael Benson, Jay Bergeron, Enrique Bernal‐Delgado, Niklas Blomberg, Christoph Bock, Ana Conesa, Susanna Del Signore, Christophe Delogne, Peter Devilee, Alberto Di Meglio, Marinus J.C. Eijkemans, Paul Flicek, Norbert Graf, Vera Grimm, Henk‐Jan Guchelaar, Yi-Ke Guo, Marta Gut, Allan Hanbury, Shahid Hanif, R.-D Hilgers, Ángel Honrado, David R. J. Hose, Jeanine J. Houwing‐Duistermaat, Tim Hubbard, Sophie H. Janacek, Haralampos Karanikas, Tim Kievits, Manfred Köhler, Andreas Kremer, Jerry Lanfear, Thomas Lengauer, Edith Maes, Theo Meert, Werner Müller, Dörthe Nickel, Peter Oledzki, Bertrand Pedersen, Milan Petković, Konstantinos Pliakos, Magnus Rattray, Josep Redón, Reinhard Schneider, Thierry Sengstag, Xavier Serra‐Picamal, Wouter Spek, Lea Vaas, Okker van Batenburg, Marc Vandelaer, Péter Várnai, Pablo Villoslada, Juan Antonio Vizcaíno, John Peter Mary Wubbe, Gianluigi Zanetti,

Scientific Computing and Data Management

Medicine and healthcare are undergoing profound changes. Whole-genome sequencing and high-resolution imaging technologies are key drivers of this rapid and crucial transformation. Technological innovation combined with automation and miniaturization has triggered an explosion in data production that will soon reach exabyte proportions. How are we going to deal with this exponential increase in data production? The potential of "big data" for improving health is enormous but, at the same time, we face a wide range of challenges to overcome urgently. Europe is very proud of its cultural diversity; however, exploitation of the data made available through advances in genomic medicine, imaging, and a wide range of mobile health applications or connected devices is hampered by numerous historical, technical, legal, and political barriers. European health systems and databases are diverse and fragmented. There is a lack of harmonization of data formats, processing, analysis, and data transfer, which leads to incompatibilities and lost opportunities. Legal frameworks for data sharing are evolving. Clinicians, researchers, and citizens need improved methods, tools, and training to generate, analyze, and query data effectively. Addressing these barriers will contribute to creating the European Single Market for health, which will improve health and healthcare for all Europeans.