by Angela Guess
A new article reports that Harvard Medical School is analyzing 20 years worth of medical records to determine the risks and effectiveness of a number of drugs. The article states, “Not to take anything away from the innovation and value of strictly commercial uses of big data, but Harvard’s work holds lives in the balance. For example, Harvard’s drug research spotted risks of teen suicide tied to certain antidepressants. Another study led to the withdrawal of a drug used in cardiac surgeries because it was shown to have higher risks than two safer alternatives. And yet another study done by the medical school led to new FDA warnings about a risk of violence among older patients using certain psychoactive drugs.”
It continues, “Harvard Medical research teams have been involved in pharmacoepidemilogy and pharmacoeconomic research for more than 13 years, and it has always been a data-intensive endeavor. With medical data now experiencing the same sort of explosive growth seen in other industries, Harvard recently stepped up to a state-of-the-art data warehousing appliance from IBM Netezza. Most of Harvard’s research centers on data from Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurance claims. Personally identifiable information is removed from this data before it gets into Harvard’s hands, but there’s still plenty of research-relevant detail on age, gender, race, previous conditions, indications, treatments, outcomes, and so on.”
photo credit: cliff1066™
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