Big Data Is Bigger in North America

North America leads the way in Big Data, besting other regions when it comes to investing, according to a new market survey by Gartner. The research firm found that while Big Data experienced international growth last year, North America led with a 9.2 percent jump in the past year.

The survey also found that 73 percent of organizations have either already invested or plan to do so in the next two years. That’s another significant increase over 2013, when the number was 64 percent.

By comparison, InsideBigData quotes IDG’s 2014 Enterprise Big Data report, which showed lower numbers. IDG found that 49 percent were already in the process of implementing Big Data projects or in the process of doing so in the future.

That begs the question: Who are these Gartner respondents that are so gung-ho on Big Data? Well, if you’re familiar with Gartner, you know its clients tend to be established enterprises and larger government agencies, more so than, say, small businesses or startups. In this case, the survey responses came from 302 Gartner Research Circle members, who are “the voice of selected business decision makers,” according to this.

Alas, being a “select” voice at a company with increased investments doesn’t mean you’re going to find instant success: Gartner notes that only 13 percent say their Big Data projects have deployed to production. That indicates that many organizations are still experimenting, Gartner Research Director Nick Heudecker said in a prepared statement.

Integrating Sleep Data with Health Records

Here’s an unusual integration story: Resmed’s AirView compliance management platform will now integrate with FairView Health Services’ Epic EHR system.

That’s nothing at which to snore. Resmed sells devices used to treat sleep apnea, which causes shallow breathing or even stops breathing for a few seconds or more. It can lead to strokes and other life-threatening problems.

Previously, doctors had to log into multiple patient management systems to review patients’ results. With this integration, the results are included within the EHR system.

A number of vendors are testing integration with EHR systems now, of course. As more solutions feed into these systems, EHRs will become rich repositories for data mining, writes Luke Shulman, a principal consultant with Arcadia Healthcare Solutions.

In the first post in a series on health care analytics, Shulman explores how EHR data integration will “power the next-generation of healthcare analytics.” As it stands now, health care analytics relies primarily on claims data, he writes. Without the clinical data from EHR, claims data has no context, he explains.

Integration vendors might also want to take note of the other major challenge hospitals face with EHR: Many hospitals are at the mercy of their vendors, who may or may not provide the CCD  (Continuity of Care Document) definitions to support integration. He looks at how health care companies can bypass this problem through integration, using the example of the “seemingly-simple process” of assessing a patient’s smoking status and any documentation of smoking cessation.

Integration Webinars

“Business in the Driver’s Seat: An Improved Model for Integration,” 4 p.m. ET, Tuesday, Sept. 30. The push for more data, faster, is reducing the lead times for development and integration work. Analyst Dr. Robin Bloor will share his thoughts on the changing nature of information design. WhereScape President Mark Budzinski will also give a product briefing on the company’s data warehouse automation solutions.

“Better Together: The New Data Management Orchestra,” 10 a.m., PT, Thursday, October 2.  A panel of Big Data leaders from Cloudera, Teradata and MongoDB will discuss Big Data architecture and how these data subsystems can work together. Colin White, an analyst with BI Research, will moderate the discussion between Chris Twogood, Teradata, Kelly Stirman, MongoDB, and Charles Zedlewski, Cloudera.

Loraine Lawson is a veteran technology reporter and blogger. She currently writes the Integration blog for IT Business Edge, which covers all aspects of integration technology, including data governance and best practices. She has also covered IT/Business Alignment and IT Security for IT Business Edge. Before becoming a freelance writer, Lawson worked at TechRepublic as a site editor and writer, covering mobile, IT management, IT security and other technology trends. Previously, she was a webmaster at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and a newspaper journalist. Follow Lawson at Google+ and on Twitter.