Heather Mattie, Instructor of Data Science and Executive Director of the Master’s Program in Health Data Science, recently participated in a conference on health and big data in Chile, a meeting that took place on June 4 and 5 at the Central House of the Catholic University and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile.
Similar to the United States, each hospital in Chile currently has its own electronic medical records, making communication across systems difficult. Heather relayed her vision for a single electronic system that everyone shares and uses, whether it is national or global. “It will take lot of time,” she said, “but if we have enough data to analyze, we could make better predictions in the future. In this sense, everything we can get from people could help them.”
Heather also spoke about the great potential of using big data and artificial intelligence to improve knowledge and medical decisions, while also stressing the importance of focusing not only on the data, but on collaborating with doctors and other health professionals to work on issues they face together.
