Big Data Security and Privacy Issues in Healthcare

TLDR

Healthcare costs and digitization have driven a surge in complex, voluminous data, positioning big data as a cost‑saving solution while raising significant security and privacy concerns. This paper reviews the current security and privacy challenges of big data in healthcare. The shift to proactive, data‑driven care is expected to lower costs and spur economic growth.

Abstract

With the ever-increasing cost for healthcare and increased health insurance premiums, there is a need for proactive healthcare and wellness. In addition, the new wave of digitizing medical records has seen a paradigm shift in the healthcare industry. As a result, the healthcare industry is witnessing an increase in sheer volume of data in terms of complexity, diversity and timeliness. As healthcare experts look for every possible way to lower costs while improving care process, delivery and management, big data emerges as a plausible solution with the promise to transform the healthcare industry. This paradigm shift from reactive to proactive healthcare can result in an overall decrease in healthcare costs and eventually lead to economic growth. While the healthcare industry harnesses the power of big data, security and privacy issues are at the focal point as emerging threats and vulnerabilities continue to grow. In this paper, we present the state-of-the-art security and privacy issues in big data as applied to healthcare industry.