What started out as simple cooperation between big data and healthcare may soon grow into something much bigger – and it looks like it will be in the form of wearable wireless devices.

According to ABI Research, “Healthcare big data analysis will grow to a $52 million market by 2019…[and] spending on big data analysis reached $182.44 million worldwide last year.”  Furthermore, close to 42 million of these wireless wearable devices will be shipped across the globe this year, devices aimed at tracking sports, fitness, and wellness.  With help of big data and data analysis, Fitbit, Nike, Jawbone and co. will track the users’ activity and relay this further to other institutions in the health and healthcare field. 

“Millions of people are tracking their levels of activity daily,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jonathan Collins.  Now the task is to turn this data into pertinent information on personal health and ideally convert this into better healthcare and improved health.  Still in its nascent stages, current spending on big data in healthcare tends towards frameworks structures and backing risk and pharmaceutical studies at the moment, though the trend seems to be shifting.  

(Image Credit:  Army Medicine)