Understanding the Uptake of Big Data in Health Care: Protocol for a Multinational Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

Background Despite the high potential of big data, their applications in health care face many organizational, social, financial, and regulatory challenges. The societal dimensions of big data are underrepresented in much medical research. Little is known about integrating big data applications in the corporate routines of hospitals and other care providers. Equally little is understood about embedding big data applications in daily work practices and how they lead to actual improvements for health care actors, such as patients, care professionals, care providers, information technology companies, payers, and the society. Objective This planned study aims to provide an integrated analysis of big data applications, focusing on the interrelations among concrete big data experiments, organizational routines, and relevant systemic and societal dimensions. To understand the similarities and differences between interactions in various contexts, the study covers 12 big data pilot projects in eight European countries, each with its own health care system. Workshops will be held with stakeholders to discuss the findings, our recommendations, and the implementation. Dissemination is supported by visual representations developed to share the knowledge gained. Methods This study will utilize a mixed-methods approach that combines performance measurements, interviews, document analysis, and cocreation workshops. Analysis will be structured around the following four key dimensions: performance, embedding, legitimation, and value creation. Data and their interrelations across the dimensions will be synthesized per application and per country. Results The study was funded in August 2017. Data collection started in April 2018 and will continue until September 2021. The multidisciplinary focus of this study enables us to combine insights from several social sciences (health policy analysis, business administration, innovation studies, organization studies, ethics, and health services research) to advance a holistic understanding of big data value realization. The multinational character enables comparative analysis across the following eight European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Given that national and organizational contexts change over time, it will not be possible to isolate the factors and actors that explain the implementation of big data applications. The visual representations developed for dissemination purposes will help to reduce complexity and clarify the relations between the various dimensions. Conclusions This study will develop an integrated approach to big data applications that considers the interrelations among concrete big data experiments, organizational routines, and relevant systemic and societal dimensions. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/16779

Why Personal Dreams Matter: How professionals affectively engage with the promises surrounding data-driven healthcare in Europe

“…We used a broad, sociologically inspired definition of rules and regulations. This meant that we also understood ethical debates and societal discussions as setting important rules for data technologies and that regulations also include informal work practices, organizational procedures, routines and habits (see for more information also Wehrens et al, 2020).…”

“…Our work eventually resulted in infographics that summarize relevant regulations and practices (BigMedilytics, 2018) and video's (BigMedilytics, 2021). More information about our approach can also be found in the methodological appendix we wrote about the project (Wehrens et al, 2020).…”

Big Data Health Care Innovations: Performance Dashboarding as a Process of Collective Sensemaking

“…The entire consortium consists of 35 different entities, ranging from health care providers, technology companies, and insurers to research institutes and universities. At the core of the consortium are 12 pilot projects that develop big data innovations in health care in 8 European countries, divided into 3 areas: population health and chronic disease management, oncology, and health care services industrialization, as described in the underlying protocol paper [ 13 ]. The big data technologies include systems to derive predictive models, clinical decision support systems, and real-time asset location systems.…”

“…In this paper, we introduce our perspective on the development of systems for monitoring big data innovation projects in health care through performance dashboards and discuss caveats concerning these systems. Our perspective focuses on the social dimension of this interactive process, that is, we do not delve into the technical dimensions, such as techniques for data analytics and visualization [ 13 ]. Importantly, we view the performance dashboards as the means to monitor big data innovation projects.…”