The Real Health Care Shift: Unstructured Data and Search
December 30, 2011
As social media has exploded in popularity over the past few years it is no surprise that companies everywhere are chomping at the bit to get their hands on all the data buried deep within its confines. New data search capabilities now allows for intelligent analysis of social media comments. The article, Healthline and Wolfram Alpha Expand Health and Treatment Research Tools, on Search Engine Watch, explains how two healthcare companies have incorporated social media data into their websites and transformed health research.
The first company is Healthline and according to the article,
The expansive database is available at launch thanks to Treato, a First Life Research company that compiles feedback on drug side effects. The Treato website was launched in September of this year, and (according to a First Life Research statement) ‘analyzes patient discussions about drugs and medical conditions on blogs and forums, aggregating them into a single, clear and highly accessible knowledge base.’
Right in line with Healthline’s advances in healthcare search is Wolfram Alpha who has integrated data from social media to compile a database available to consumers with information on the different treatments for medical conditions. By combining data from physical and virtual information sources they are able to provide patients with the most accurate data possible.
These are just two examples of how unstructured data is becoming accessible to companies and through intelligent analysis is providing plenty of opportunities for expansion of services. With the amount of data currently left untouched by most search it is only a matter of time until this untapped source of information explodes into popular enterprise search practices.
Catherine Lamsfuss, December 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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