Open Data

Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. It is important that the data are re-usable without requiring further permission, though the types of re-use such as the creation of derivative works may be controlled by a license. All industries can get a benefit from big, and one of them is healthcare sector. There is a huge number of data stored in healthcare sector which can be useful for many people and organizations. So, converting these data into open data will come with great benefits. It can help in detecting diseases at earlier stages when they can be treated more easily and effectively, managing specific individual and population health and detecting health care fraud more quickly and efficiently. Certain developments or outcomes may be predicted and estimated based on vast amounts of historical data, such as length of stay (LOS), patients who will choose elective surgery, patients who likely will not benefit from surgery, complications, and patients at risk for medical complications, illness/disease progression and possible co-morbid conditions. You can just imagine if you can access to all this huge data such benefits you will gain. 

Big Data in Healthcare Sector

Big data is a new generation of technologies and architectures, designed to economically extract value from very large volumes of a wide variety of data produced every day, by enabling high velocity capture, discovery, and analysis. It is a buzzword making rounds in almost all the industries. And, it is acted as a source of innovation in healthcare sector and it is increased with the vastly increase supply of information. These big data in healthcare sector comes from different sources such as electronic medical records (EHR), labs, Imaging systems, medical correspondence, claims, database system and finance. And its volume is expected to grow dramatically in the years ahead. The value of big data in healthcare sector is not just in dollars, but in lives. There are five value pathways in big data which are: right living which focus on encouraging patient to make lifestyle choices that help them remain healthy such as exercise, right care which ensuring that the patient having the right and appropriate treatment, right provider, this pathway proposes that patients always treated by high performing professionals, right value focusing in measures for ensuring cost effectiveness of care also, providers should enhance the health care value and improve its quality, the last pathway is right innovation involve approaches to delivering care and improving innovation. Finally, big data has the future of success when it comes with a prepared plan. 

Waterfall Methodology

Waterfall is the first methodology founded for the systems development life cycle. Also, it is called classic and traditional approach. It was established in 1970 by Winston W. Royce. It is about a sequential phase which used in the software developer processes, it called waterfall because the phases are flowing steadily downwards like the waterfall, and these phases are: requirement, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance. However, like any model, Waterfall has its pros and cons. First pros, it’s considered to be the simplest and the easiest model because it is easy to manage. Second, each stage has specific deliverables plus review processes in the same time. Moreover, the stages are well organized, and each step has a start date and finish date. Plus, testing is applied in every stage. Additionally, waterfall is the best option for small projects with clear requirements. Also, it is good for the large systems because it provides a lot of details. Furthermore, a well-organized documentation is provided by waterfall which is very important to move from each stage. Back to the waterfall cons, there will be a lot of budget and effort for writing the documentation after each stage. Waterfall is not flexible on responding to any changes that happen between stages. In addition, it is sometimes costly to be implemented. Further, when the customer tests the system and represent a feedback, these feedbacks will be difficult to contain into the project. Another issue is that when developers face problems they left it to the end to solve it and also does not allow for much revision.

Utilizing Social Media in SMEs

Social Media is a new phenomenon to offer great opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to promote their products and services and increase communication with their suppliers and their customers. It is also an excellent way to keep abreast of their competitors and gaining new customers. Social media is the social interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks. Nowadays, the use of social media tools increased significantly. In result, both businesses and consumers are using the media to share information, exchange opinions and recommendations and display certain consumption behavior. At the beginning there were few tools appear in a social media like Google, discussion forums, YouTube and Facebook. The uses of these tools were very simple. Recently, new features were added to the previous tools and new tools were appears such as, Instagram, twitter and LinkedIn. However, once the SMEs realize that they have to expand their business scope, enhance efficiency, and strengthen and consolidate its relationship with its customers and vendors, they found that social media is the best way. Since the use of social media help the SMEs in multiple ways. For example, the way of exchanging information is easier and faster, the customers are more accessible, the time of marketing is decreased, generate opportunities to come up with new products and services and many additional benefits of utilizing social media.