In the News: Medical professionals use data mining techniques to help patients SkyGum By looking at the human body as a databank filled with complex information, University of Minnesota medical professionals are creating an impact in the emerging field of biomedical and health care informatics. In simple terms, biomedical informatics is a collaborative process where professionals mine enormous amounts of health data to understand and possibly cure diseases. Much like Facebook and Google mine consumer data to gain advertising insights, researchers mine health data to help diagnose, understand and cure diseases. To create and maintain these data centers, an effort is needed from different types of professionals including physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, social scientists and computer engineers. As the possibilities continue to grow, the informatics field is widely considered to be revolutionizing every major aspect of medicine from laboratory research to clinical trials. Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D., is one of several University of Minnesota faculty members heavily involved with biomedical informatics and spoke with the Star Tribune about the field. “We go from data to information, to knowledge to wisdom,” said Tolar. “And unless we have a very systematic way of looking at the data, we will not only lose a lot of the information, but also, we will do harm, in my opinion.” Bonnie Westra, Ph.D., R.N., and Connie Delaney, Ph.D., R.N., with the School of Nursing were also quoted. The University of Minnesota, along with Mayo Clinic and several Minnesota businesses is pushing the informatics trend forward. In fact, three years ago the U of M received a $5.1 million grant to train health professionals in the informatics field. The post In the News: Medical professionals use data mining techniques to help patients appeared first on SkyGum. skygum/in-the-news-medical-professionals-use-data-mining-techniques-to-help-patients/2013/08/05/
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:27:36 +0000
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