McKinsey: Redefining Healthcare and Banking

Medicine today is essentially an art, which relies on heuristic judgment by highly skilled professionals which are distributed around the world.

When my mother took seriously ill early in 2012, she needed care from a range of physicians, such as neurology, pulmonary and infection.  For the most part, the nursing staff kept them informed.  But on occasion, a physician will ask us questions about what another physician has said or done, and it was clear there were some gaps in the coordination of care.  So what Nicolaus Henke said about Big Data and Analysis as pulling disparate aspects of care together is crucial: There should be no reason why physicians are not clued into what each of them is doing with a particular patient. 

Big data improve efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trials, and thus improve topline and bottomline.

I want to emphasize what Sam Marwaha said about case for action: Before embarking on Big Data and Analytics, be clear on how and where the outcomes will be used.  There must be a purpose or an endgame to what you do.  In fact what you're trying to accomplish must determine what you do.  Moreover, as with his colleagues, Marwaha talks about case for action, based on value: I interpret this to mean ROI essentially.  That is, value is getting back more than what you put in. Outcomes from Big Data and Analytics are therefore meaningful, effective and efficient.  Given tighter finances, resources and regulation in healthcare, the potential benefits of Big Data and Analytics are huge.

You really have to make sure that third-party data you tap is good data and the right data for you.

The banking case study that Toos Daruvala talks about essentially had outdated algorithms (underwriting models) for distinguishing good risk from bad risk and their success rate was correspondingly low.  So management took a 360° view of their customers across their entire organization to gain holistic, that is, complete and precise, insight on risk.  Any data you collect, such as third-party or social media, must be good data to begin with, and it must the right data to realize that insight.  In brief, then, you must clear on (a) what you're trying to accomplish, (b) what you need in this regard, and (c) how you'll make it all happen (rf. Part 4 - Achieving Organizational Aims).