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Back when I was an eleven-year-old in the 6th grade, I lived in a poor mountain community in Northern California. Most of the townspeople relied on the lumber mill to provide for their meager income. There were a lot of people barely scraping by on what little money came in.Times were tough.A lot of times the mill shut down and families were forced to move out of town to find employment elsewhere.I lost a lot of friends that way.Kids went hungry. There were a lot of skinny children up in those mountains. A lot of those kids were wearing shoes with holes in them.In the snow.Desperate times.Judge Richard Eaton was an “old-timer” in Shasta County. A pioneer. He was an octogenarian with a kind heart and a flush bank account. He married my grandparents!He was an avid outdoorsman and angler. He enjoyed coming up to the mountains to fish. Sometimes, he would stop by our small classroom and give nature lectures.He would bring in a stuffed raccoon, or a taxidermied owl and set it up on a desk in front of the class and give his talks. We would sit wide-eyed, fascinated, listening to him describe how the animal hunted for food, or built a nest or comfortable burrow, warm enough to survive during the winter snows. He was a natural storyteller and had a way with words.We would raise our little hands and ask question after question, enthralled and intrigued with his wisdom. We were always thrilled to have Judge Eaton stop by. We hugged him goodbye when it was time for him to leave. I'd see his wrinkled face break into a big grin as tears welled up in his eyes, hard to break away.I could feel his pity for us skinny little waifs.One day, a letter was sent home to all the parents in my class.It said we had the opportunity to attend National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D) Camp for one week at no charge to the parents!This was an expensive gift to attend a weeklong camping adventure, what with meals, transportation, insurance and staff provided for an entire crop of school children!The generous gift of partial scholarship, provided by Judge Richard Eaton, in cooperation with the Shasta County Board of Education, made it a possibility for every single child to attend, no matter their financial circumstance!Exciting news!N.E.E.D Camp was a place where the kids learned about the environment; survival skills in the wilderness, wildlife, geology, ecology, plant identification, weaving fish traps and shelter building, as well as learning how to use a compass and reading topographical maps. It was all covered in the week-long school.Before we left for camp, we were given a three- day supply of “ImmunOak” in our daily orange juice. Poison oak didn't grow in the mountains, but was plentiful at N.E.E.D Camp. Back in those days, the FDA hadn't yet banned the magic elixir, so I drank down my disgusting anti-venin like a good girl, and to this day, thirty-something years later, I still am immune to poison oak!The day we departed, we were packed into a bus with all our gear, kids, teachers and high school counselors, and made the hour-and-a-half long journey to the camp. We arrived at camp, got our cabin assignments, and settled in for our first time away from home.Goodbye Mommy!It was great!We caught tadpoles and learned about their development. We hiked seven mile loops, through caves (filled with bats) and over waterfalls, collecting specimens to write our reports in the field, amidst trickling creeks and wildflowers. We took water samples from the natural watershed and observed fish in the streams as we tried our hand at catching some in our homemade traps.We didn't have any luck.We watched the deer feeding on the grass right outside our cabin, and learned to identify species of birds. We glassed bald eagles and spied on squirrels and raccoons.We were even dropped off, solo, without a light, on a pitch-black trail one dark night, and had to hike back, in the dark woods, alone, to find our way back to the rest of the group by ourselves. Frightening!I was proud of myself that I didn't cry.This is stuff “city kids” don't learn about in the classroom.This wasn't any regular classroom!Judge Eaton spoke at the camp. He gave a slideshow on bears. It scared me to know I was out in the dark with them. It also made me proud. I learned survival skills at a very young age from N.E.E.D Camp.Afterwards, while he was packing up his projector and the other kids had finally moved away from him, I got up the nerve to approach this gray-haired icon.I said hello and introduced myself. I told him my grandparents names and told him he had married them long ago. He pretended to remember. He smiled at me kindly.Judge Eaton -all images courtesy GoogleI thanked him for giving me a scholarship to attend N.E.E.D Camp. I told him I had learned so much and that I was very appreciative.His eyes got wide and he looked shocked. He pulled me into a hug and knelt before me, eye-level.“Child, in all these years I've been providing this fund, you're the first young person to say those words. I appreciate hearing them, but I always want you to remember, that whenever you give a gift, you should never, ever expect to hear a word of thanks in return. Ever! Because the gift is in the giving, itself. Not in the praise we receive for giving it. Do not expect to be congratulated for it. Do you understand me?”I nodded my head and turned away, disappointed in the rebuff.What a weird, old guy!Of course, I didn't understand him, then.I was only a child.But I thought back to that moment over the years, and one day, I finally caught up to his wisdom.I understand perfectly what he means now.Beautiful.Those simple words changed me forever.When I give a gift, I don't expect to receive accolades or thanks. I don't expect the recipient to express gratitude or overwhelming graciousness; my heart already feels thankful for the beautiful blessing I've bestowed. And that's a gift in itself. A gift I've given to myself.By the time I had made it to high school, I had garnered such respect for N.E.E.D Camp, that I went back and volunteered as a camp counselor when I was seventeen.Somehow, I was assigned a cabin of little boys, instead of girls.Those little guys were a handful, but it was a great experience all over again.Today, it is part of the curriculum of most Shasta County schools for their students to attend the camp. It is a requirement as part of passing the grade level.Over 70,000 students have attended the camp over the years and have acquired basic outdoor skills other students in classrooms throughout the USA will never be required, nor even think are important to learn about!Because those students aren't mountain kids.They probably don't need to worry about being lost in any area bigger than a mall!Like we do.I'm thankful to both Judge Eaton and the Shasta County Board of Education for making a difference. N.E.E.D Camp quite possibly played a part in saving my life later on in life. And the experience changed me forever.The Record Searchlight (April 11, 2011)Since 1971, more than 70,000 students have increased their knowledge of environmental science after going through the weeklong camping experience at the Whiskeytown Environmental School in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the school will host a free barbecue with live music and a history lecture Saturday.Sponsored by the school and the Shasta Historical Society, the lecture will cover topics of interest before the school arrived amid the environmental revolution in the beginning of the 1970s. Clinton Kane, park ranger, will be the main speaker.As a general campground in the mid-1900s, church youth groups seasonally used the area for a camp. Before this period, the land served as a stomping ground for the American Indian community. The history, Kane said, has yet to be fully recovered. "It's still a work in progress in terms of learning about the history and putting it together," he said. "I'd like to go as far back as to the mining use of the history, but it's kind of sparse."During the Gold Rush era, the area became a major transportation route for miners heading toward Weaverville from Redding. Inside the park, miners, along with farmers and ranchers, worked on the mining hot spots during the 1850s.The school, a National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D.) camp, specializes in improving environmental education for elementary and middle schoolchildren. "Facilities and institutions like the N.E.E.D. camp provide a special dimension to the youth of our community," said Pat Carr, Shasta Historical Society lecture series coordinator. "Oftentimes, they aren't going to get it in the classroom. This is an opportunity to take the classroom outdoors. And the fact that this has been going on for 40 years with 70,000 students makes us appreciate these extraordinary treasures that are in our mist."Fifth- and sixth-graders across several counties make reservations at the school for the overnight trips where students stay in cabins and enjoy campfires. During their stay, they build onto what they've learned of the environment in the classroom with hands-on activities with naturalists. This usually lasts a week. The school offers day camps for younger children starting at the kindergarten level.With generations of children and later their children heading to the camp, Kane said it has become somewhat of a tradition for north state students."It's kind of a tradition in Northern California," he said. "But, unfortunately, with the budget crisis happening on the state and federal level, we don't know if the school will continue as it did back in the day."A downward economy and budget cuts have decreased revenue for educational programs like this one. Whiskeytown may be one of the few N.E.E.D. camps left in the country, Kane said.

You’ve come to the right place! This has been something of a hobby of mine for many, many years. Here is a sampling of the best:1. McDonald v. Scripps-Howard Newspapers — Twelve year-old Gavin McDonald (acting through his parents) filed a lawsuit against the newspaper syndicate that sponsored a spelling bee. Gavin’s “legal theory” was that he should be named the winner of the contest because another boy, who had mistakenly been disqualified earlier, was allowed to participate, and when Gaven misspelled a word, this was the boy who won. The opening line of the court opinion says it all: “Question: When should a lawyer say ‘No’ to a client? Answer: When asked to file a lawsuit like this one.”2. Lodi v. Lodi — Arguably the creator of a whole, very small class of lawsuits: Oreste Lodi filed a lawsuit against himself. He had the papers served on himself and, when he didn’t answer his own lawsuit, tried to have a default judgment taken against himself. The judge caught the oddness of the request and dismissed the lawsuit instead. So Lodi appealed — and the California court of appeal actually published the decision. The place where the respective attorneys for both sides are normally listed near the beginning of the appellate opinion instead has a single line: “Oreste Lodi for Plaintiff and Appellant and Defendant and Respondent.” (The lawsuit was apparently some kind of scheme to convince the IRS that he had been sued for everything he was worth, and therefore had no assets that could be garnished. Or something.)3. Harris v. Time, Inc. — Another California case (Why is it always California? Hard to say. California is to loony lawsuits what Florida is to everything else.) Back in 1985, little 3 year-old Joshua Gnaizda got a soliciation from Time magazine that said on the outside of the envelope, “Joshua Gnaizda, if you open this envelope, we’ll give you a free watch!” But inside the envelope, there was, in fact no free watch. The watch was only “free” if you ordered a subscription to Time magazine. Joshua’s father (who recently passed away) was a prominent public interest attorney, and instead filed a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit against Time for having “defrauded” the public. The court of appeal was not amused.4. Riss v. City of New York — Back in the 1950s, Linda Riss was an attractive young woman who had spurned a suitor named Burt Pugach. Riss was nearly blinded, and badly disfigured, when Pugach hired a thug to throw lye in her face. Pugach got a lengthy prison sentence and Riss sued the City of New York for failing to protect her. The highest court of New York eventually upheld the dismissal of her lawsuit, 4-3, ruling that the police cannot be sued for failing to protect a crime victim if they merely take a report of the crime. The story has a happy ending, though — when Pugach got out of prison, he and Riss got married.5. Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Georgia — A heartwarming tale (sort of) about a couple who owned a “talking cat” named Blackie. Blackie allegeldy would meow "I love you" or "I want my Mama" to people on the street, and his owners, an otherwise unemployed couple, encouraged people to “donate” a dollar for the privilege of hearing him talk. The city claimed that their solicitation of money for their talking feline was a “business occupation” and that they needed to pay the city for a license — just like, say, a pushcart vendor. They got the license but then sued the city, and the case made it all the way to the federal appeals court. (Spoiler: The Miles couple lost.)6. Mayo v. Satan and His Staff — Mayo was a prisoner in the lock-up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and sued Satan (the horns-and-a-tail fellow) for having led him astray and into a life of crime. The federal appeals court dismissed the lawsuit on the odd ground that the defendant could not demonstrate that Satan was domiciled in that federal court district in order to serve him with the papers. (The “Staff,” incidentally, appears to have referred to Satan’s band of evil minions, and not a big stick of some kind.)7. Brown v. State — Not so much a weird case, per se, but interesting because of the opinion itself. The defendant in a Georgia felony case claimed he had a defense witness who was unavailable. The trial judge refused to grant a continuance, so, the trial went forward, and the defendant was convicted. The defendant appealed, and the appellate court’s opinion reads, in part: “The D. A. was ready/His case was red-hot./Defendant was present,/His witness was not.He prayed one day's delay/From His honor the judge./But his plea was not granted/The Court would not budge.So the jury was empanelled/All twelve good and true/But without his main witness/What could the twelve do?”It goes on like that for 18 stanzas, with less important things like the facts of the case and the law that the appellate court relied upon in footnotes. One of them explains that, “This opinion is placed in rhyme because approximately one year ago, in Savannah at a very convivial celebration, the distinguished Judge Dunbar Harrison, Senior Judge of Chatham Superior Courts, arose and addressed those assembled, and demanded that if Judge Randall Evans, Jr. ever again was so presumptuous as to reverse one of his decisions, that the opinion be written in poetry.” So the next time Judge Evans (the author of the doggerel above) in fact had to reverse Judge Harrison, he came up with . . . whatever that is, above.8. Fisher v. Lowe — While I’m on the subject of court opinions written in rhyme, in 1983 the Michigan Court of Appeal had a case come before it in which a man skidded off a road and damaged the oak tree on a nearby property. The owner sued the driver. Michigan, however, has a strict no-fault insurance law, which does not permit recovery of damage to real property by an automobile. This “inspired” Judge John Gillis to write what is almost certainly the best of such “poetic opinions,” which (minus the footnotes, which once again have the tiresome stuff, like “facts” and “law”), in its entirety, is this homage to Joyce Kilmer’s Trees:“We thought that we would never seeA suit to compensate a tree.A suit whose claim in tort is prestUpon a mangled tree's behest;A tree whose battered trunk was prestAgainst a Chevy's crumpled crest;A tree that faces each new dayWith bark and limb in disarray;A tree that may forever bearA lasting need for tender care.Flora lovers though we three,We must uphold the court's decree.Affirmed.”The folks who publish the law books you see in law libraries were so impressed by this that they, too, even wrote the case headnotes in rhyme.9. Leonard v. Pepsico — No account of bizzaro court cases would be complete without this 1999 federal court case, arising from a promotion run by Pepsi back in the ’90s. Consumers could collect “Pepsi Points” that were redeemable for merchandise like hats, sunglasses, beach towels, etc. Buried in the fine print was a provision that if you submitted 10% of the necessary points in cash, plus at least 15 points (printed on bottle caps, cardboard drink can packaging, etc.) you could get the items without collecting enough points.The lawsuit arose when Pepsi did a TV commercial that showed a Harrier jet landing on a lawn, with the phrase “Harrier Jet — 7,000,000 points.” So a fellow named John Leonard somehow got a number of folks to pledge a total of $70,000, which he submitted along with 15 points to Pepsi and said, “Where’s my Harrier?” Pepsi responded with a letter claiming that the commercial was just hyperbole. Leonard sued. The court of appeal agreed with Pepsi that its TV commercial could not reasonably be taken as an “offer” for a Harrier jet for Pepsi points.But in the meantime, just to be sure, Pepsi modified its commercials to say, “Harrier Jet — 700,000,000 points,” presumably to discourage the John Leonards of the world from offering $70,000,000 plus 15 Pepsi points. I mean, heck, for that kind of money, you could buy, I dunno, your own fighter jet.10. Hormel Foods v. Jim Henson Productions. Or as I like to call it, “SPAM versus the Muppets.” Back in 1997, Henson’s production company produced a movie called Muppet Treasure Island. One of the minor characters was a pig — well, actually a boar — named “Spa’am,” pronounced as if you hiccuped right as you were saying his name. Hormel foods sued Henson Productions claiming that the Spa’am character — and I’m not making this up — damaged the “good name” of SPAM. The court of appeal wrote an amusing opinion, noting that Hormel should have been inured to people making fun of its signature gelatinous product, and should even have been honored that (for once) it was associated with an actual source of pork.No word on whether Hormel has sued anyone over the association of its product with trillions of unwanted e-mails.11. White v. Samsung Electronics America — In the early 1990s, Samsung had a series of television commercials humorously suggesting how various then-current trends might play out in the future. One of them showed an otherwise faceless gold robot wearing a blond wig turning letters, with the caption, “Most popular game show, 2050.” Vanna White sued, claiming that the commercials infringed upon her “image.” And unlike in the Pepsi case, she won! This was apparently confirmation that her “image” is that she is a “blond robot.” C’mon, Vanna — did you really want to point that out?12. Trustees of Columbia University v. Jacobsen — back in the 1950s, Mr. Jacobsen attended Columbia and later dropped out. He then sued the school for failing to impart wisdom and knowledge, as stated (among other places) on its emblem. Well, he certainly demonstrated that, didn’t he? Case dismissed.13. Dickens v. Debolt — Dickens was a fisherman, who caught a large legal sturgeon at a legal time of day. Having no way to clean the fish, he left it in the water tied with a rope. Later that day, at a time when it would have been illegal to fish, DeBolt, a fish and game warden, showed up and seized the fish, citing some other (uninvolved) nearby fishermen who were camping on the scene. Dickens sued the State for the valued of his wrongfully-seized fish. When DeBolt showed up in court, all the evidence he could produce was an eight-pound block that he had cleaned and frozen. Other testimony showed that a sturgeon of the size Dickens had caught should have yielded about 40 lbs. of cleaned fish, suggesting that DeBolt may well have eaten the rest of the evidence. Judgment for Dickens in the amount of several hundred dollars.14. Stambovsky v. Ackley — Stambovsky bought a home from Helen Ackley in Nyack, New York (up the Hudson from NYC). After he moved in, he discovered “to his horror” (as the court later put it) that Ackley had for years advertised this as her “haunted house on the Hudson,” even going so far as to publicize this in an article in Reader’s Digest in 1977. Stambovsky sued to rescind the purchase. Although New York has a fairly strict “Let the buyer beware” rule for home purchases, the appellate court ruled for Stambovsky, with lots of lines like the buyer normally “hasn’t a ghost of a chance,” but that the court was moved “by the spirit of equity” to rule for Stambovsky. Most interestingly, the court held that because Ackley had tirelessly advertised that her house was beset with a poltergeist, she could not deny this and therefore the house was haunted “as a matter of law.”15. Velasco v. Commercial Building Maintenance Co. — Velasco and his son were injured when a glass bottle soda bottle exploded, striking them with broken glass. They hired a lawyer, who left the pieces of the broken bottle in a paper bag on his desk. That night, the building’s janitorial service found a paper bag filled with broken glass (not otherwise labeled) on the lawyer’s desk, assumed it was trash, and discarded it. The Velascos sued the custodial company for what might be called “janitorial malpractice.” The court of appeal was not impressed with the argument. But don’t feel bad for the Velascos — their next lawsuit was presumably for legal malpractice, for leaving crucial evidence on a desk without labeling it, or putting it somewhere safe.16. Jordache Enterprises v. Hogg Wyld, Inc. — Jordache, once a leading retailer of jeans, sued two women who created a sort-of knock-off called Lardashe (its emblem showed a pig sticking its head over the pocket, as though “peeking out”). They claimed that there was no attempt to associate their brand’s name with “Jordache,” although some of the other names for their product that they had kicked around before settling on “Lardashe” (“Wiseashe” depicting an owl, or “Dumbashe” with a picture of a donkey) seemed to suggest the origins of the name pretty clearly. Nevertheless, the court ruled in favor of Hogg Wyld” (which had since changed its name to “Oink, Inc.”), finding that their name, although clearly derived from “Jordache,” was a parody, and as in copyright law, there was no infringement as long as there was no realistic likelihood of confusing the consumer.The court ended its opinion with this quotation from Lewis Carroll: “If it had grown up,' she said to herself, `it would have been a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.' " L. Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 78-79 (1892).17. People v. Ramos — Ramos was convicted of first degree burglary, namely, breaking and entering of an inhabited dwelling. He testified that when he entered the house, however, he found the occupant had apparently died some time earlier. (So he just grabbed the microwave, and ran.) The D.A. argued that it was still burlgary of an “inhabited” dwelling because the owner had the “intent” to return when he evidently laid down and died in his sleep. The court of appeal concluded, however, that that “intent” to return only applied if the person actually has the capability to return. With no evidence that the occupant was alive when Ramos broke in, the court modified his conviction to a lower-level crime. (Cf., however, Stambovksy, above.)18. Zim v. Western Publishing Company — Those of us who grew up in the 1950s or 1960s fondly remember a series of books by Herbert S. Zim, known as the Golden Guides — colorful, heavily illustrated books for children on nature, science, and the like. But Zim got into a dispute with his publisher, resulting in a lower court judgment in favor of the publisher. Zim’s dispute came before Judge Irving Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court, and Goldberg decided to begin his opinion as if he were writing a different book: “In the beginning, Zim created the concept of the Golden Guides. For the earth was dark and ignorance filled the void. And Zim said, let there be enlightenment and there was enlightenment. In the Golden Guides, Zim created the heavens (STARS) (SKY OBSERVER'S GUIDE) and the earth. (MINERALS) (ROCKS and MINERALS) (GEOLOGY).” The whole case is sprinkled with lines like that, and eventually, Goldberg ruled in part in Zim’s favor — or as he put it, the lower court “shall write another chapter in the chronicle of Zim.”19. Flood v. Kuhn — Curt Flood was a center fielder who brought a lawsuit challenging major league baseball’s “reserve clause,” which effectively bound him to one team and prohibited him from peddling his talents to the highest bidder. The case reachd the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970, and Justice Harry Blackmun wrote an opinion upholding the reserve clause. The strange part of the opinion, however, is a sort of paean to baseball, a section of his opinion called “The Game,” reviewing baseball history from the 19th through mid-twentieth centuries, listing 83 legendary players. He noted that, in doing so, it risked leaving out other deserving players (even though his list ends with those who were playing around 1940). Paging Ken Burns.20. Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books USA, Inc. — From 1997, a cautionary tale, written in the wake of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal. Two fellows who named themselves “Dr. Juice” wrote The Cat NOT in the Hat, a rhyming account of the circus surrounding Simpson's trial. The book used the anapestic tetrameter (yes, that's what it's called) employed by Dr. Seuss in his children's books. It even showed Simpson in a crooked stove-pipe hat similar to that of the famous Seussian cat. Sample verse: "One knife? Two knife? Red knife. Dead wife." Although parody can be an exception to copyright and trademark law (see Hogg Wyld above), the thing being parodied must be the subject of the creation. Here, "Dr. Juice" simply retold the Simpson events by "borrowing" the style and symbols made famous by Dr. Seuss. The court of appeal upheld an order that all copies of The Cat NOT in the Hat be destroyed.21. Shenandoah Valley National Bank of Winchester v. Taylor - A fellow named Charles Henry created a trust directing that, every year on the last day of school before Easter and the day before Christmas, each child in the second and third grades at a specific elementary in Winchester, Virginia was to receive an equal share of the income of the trust. The court of appeal invalidated the directive, finding that for a trust to qualify as a "charitable trust," it had to do something "charitable" and not merely "benevolent." Giving each child what likely would have amounted to between $5 and $10 dollar twice a year was not a "charitable purpose."

There’s a huge need for big data in healthcare due to rising costs in nations like the United States. The advantages of adopting and applying such in the healthcare has been to potentially said to reduce US healthcare expenditure.Below are some areas where big data is being applied in the healthcare:1) Patients Predictions For An Improved StaffingFor our first example of big data in healthcare, we will look at one classic problem that any shift manager faces: how many people do I put on staff at any given time period? If you put on too many workers, you run the risk of having unnecessary labor costs add up. Too few workers, you can have poor customer service outcomes – which can be fatal for patients in that industry.Big data is helping to solve this problem, at least at a few hospitals in Paris. A Forbes article details how four hospitals which are part of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris have been using data from a variety of sources to come up with daily and hourly predictions of how many patients are expected to be at each hospital.One of they key data sets is 10 years’ worth of hospital admissions records, which data scientists crunched using “time series analysis” techniques. These analyses allowed the researchers to see relevant patterns in admission rates. Then, they could use machine learning to find the most accurate algorithms that predicted future admissions trends.Summing up the product of all this work, Forbes states: “The result is a web browser-based interface designed to be used by doctors, nurses and hospital administration staff – untrained in data science – to forecast visit and admission rates for the next 15 days. Extra staff can be drafted in when high numbers of visitors are expected, leading to reduced waiting times for patients and better quality of care.”2) Electronic Health Records (EHRs)It’s the most widespread application of big data in medicine. Every patient has his own digital record which includes demographics, medical history, allergies, laboratory test results etc. Records are shared via secure information systems and are available for providers from both public and private sector. Every record is comprised of one modifiable file, which means that doctors can implement changes over time with no paperwork and no danger of data replication.EHRs can also trigger warnings and reminders when a patient should get a new lab test or track prescriptions to see if a patient has been following doctors’ orders.Although EHR are a great idea, many countries still struggle to fully implement them. U.S. has made a major leap with 94% of hospitals adopting EHRs according to this HITECH research, but the EU still lags behind. However, an ambitious directive drafted by European Commission is supposed to change it: by 2020 centralized European health record system should become a reality.Kaiser Permanente is leading the way in the U.S., and could provide a model for the EU to follow. They’ve fully implemented a system called HealthConnect that shares data across all of their facilities and makes it easier to use EHRs. A McKinsey report on big data healthcare states that “The integrated system has improved outcomes in cardiovascular disease and achieved an estimated $1 billion in savings from reduced office visits and lab tests.”3) Real-Time AlertingOther examples of big data analytics in healthcare share one crucial functionality – real-time alerting. In hospitals, Clinical Decision Support (CDS) software analyzes medical data on the spot, providing health practitioners with advice as they make prescriptive decisions.However, doctors want patients to stay away from hospitals to avoid costly in-house treatments. Personal analytics devices, already trending as business intelligence buzzwords in 2016, have the potential to become part of a new strategy. Wearables will collect patients’ health data continuously and send this data to the cloud.Additionally, this information will be accessed to the database on the state of health of the general public, which will allow doctors to compare this data in socioeconomic context and modify the delivery strategies accordingly. Institutions and care managers will use sophisticated tools to monitor this massive data stream and react every time the results will be disturbing.For example, if a patient’s blood pressure increases alarmingly, the system will send an alert in real time to the doctor who will then take action to reach the patient and administer measures to lower the pressure.Another example is that of Asthmapolis, which has started to use inhalers with GPS-enabled trackers in order to identify asthma trends both on an individual level and looking at larger populations. This data is being used in conjunction with data from the CDC in order to develop better treatment plans for asthmatics.4) Enhancing Patient EngagementMany consumers – and hence, potential patients – already have an interest in smart devices that record every step they take, their heart rates, sleeping habits, etc., on a permanent basis. All this vital information can be coupled with other trackable data to identify potential health risks lurking. A chronic insomnia and an elevated heart rate can signal a risk for future heart disease for instance. Patients are directly involved in the monitoring of their own health, and incentives from health insurances can push them to lead a healthy lifestyle (e.g.: giving money back to people using smart watches).Another way to do so comes with new wearables under development, tracking specific health trends and relaying them to the cloud where physicians can monitor them. Patients suffering from asthma or blood pressure could benefit from it, and become a bit more independent and reduce unnecessary visits to the doctor.5) Prevent Opioid Abuse In The USOur fourth example of big data healthcare is tackling a serious problem in the US. Here’s a sobering fact: as of this year, overdoses from misused opioids have caused more accidental deaths in the U.S. than road accidents, which were previously the most common cause of accidental death.Analytics expert Bernard Marr writes about the problem in a Forbes article. The situation has gotten so dire that Canada has declared opioid abuse to be a “national health crisis,” and President Obama earmarked $1.1 billion dollars for developing solutions to the issue while he was in office.Once again, an application of big data analytics in healthcare might be the answer everyone is looking for: data scientists at Blue Cross Blue Shield have started working with analytics experts at Fuzzy Logix to tackle the problem. Using years of insurance and pharmacy data, Fuzzy Logix analysts have been able to identify 742 risk factors that predict with a high degree of accuracy whether someone is at risk for abusing opioids.As Blue Cross Blue Shield data scientist Brandon Cosley states in the Forbes piece: “It’s not like one thing – ‘he went to the doctor too much’ – is predictive … it’s like ‘well you hit a threshold of going to the doctor and you have certain types of conditions and you go to more than one doctor and live in a certain zip code…’ Those things add up.”To be fair, reaching out to people identified as “high risk” and preventing them from developing a drug issue is a delicate undertaking. However, this project still offers a lot of hope towards mitigating an issue which is destroying the lives of many people and costing the system a lot of money.6) Using Health Data For Informed Strategic PlanningThe use of big data in healthcare allows for strategic planning thanks to better insights into people’s motivations. Care mangers can analyze check-up results among people in different demographic groups and identify what factors discourage people from taking up treatment.University of Florida made use of Google Maps and free public health data to prepare heat maps targeted at multiple issues, such as population growth and chronic diseases. Subsequently, academics compared this data with the availability of medical services in most heated areas. The insights gleaned from this allowed them to review their delivery strategy and add more care units to most problematic areas.7) Big Data Might Just Cure CancerAnother interesting example of the use of big data in healthcare is the Cancer Moonshot program. Before the end of his second term, President Obama came up with this program that had the goal of accomplishing 10 years’ worth of progress towards curing cancer in half that time.Medical researchers can use large amounts of data on treatment plans and recovery rates of cancer patients in order to find trends and treatments that have the highest rates of success in the real world. For example, researchers can examine tumor samples in biobanks that are linked up with patient treatment records. Using this data, researchers can see things like how certain mutations and cancer proteins interact with different treatments and find trends that will lead to better patient outcomes.This data can also lead to unexpected benefits, such as finding that Desipramine, which is an anti-depressant, has the ability to help cure certain types of lung cancer.However, in order to make these kinds of insights more available, patient databases from different institutions such as hospitals, universities, and nonprofits need to be linked up. Then, for example, researchers could access patient biopsy reports from other institutions. Another potential use case would be genetically sequencing cancer tissue samples from clinical trial patients and making these data available to the wider cancer database.But, there are a lot of obstacles in the way, including:Incompatible data systems. This is perhaps the biggest technical challenge, as making these data sets able to interface with each other is quite a feat.Patient confidentiality issues. There are differing laws state by state which govern what patient information can be released with or without consent, and all of these would have to be navigated.Simply put, institutions which have put a lot of time and money into developing their own cancer dataset may not be eager to share with others, even though it could lead to a cure much more quickly.However, as an article by Fast Company states, there are precedents to navigating these types of problems: “…the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has hooked up with a half-dozen hospitals and universities to form the Undiagnosed Disease Network, which pools data on super-rare conditions (like those with just a half-dozen sufferers), for which every patient record is a treasure to researchers.”Hopefully, Obama’s panel will be able to navigate the many roadblocks in the way and accelerate progress towards curing cancer using the strength of data analytics.Exclusive Bonus Content: Boost your healthcare business with Big Data Get our guide with 5 questions you can use to increase profits!8) Predictive Analytics In HealthcareWe have already recognized predictive analytics as one of the biggest business intelligence trend two years in a row, but the potential applications reach far beyond business and much further in the future. Optum Labs, an US research collaborative, has collected EHRs of over 30 million patients to create a database for predictive analytics tools that will improve the delivery of care.The goal of healthcare business intelligence is to help doctors make data-driven decisions within seconds and improve patients’ treatment. This is particularly useful in case of patients with complex medical histories, suffering from multiple conditions. New tools would also be able to predict, for example, who is at risk of diabetes, and thereby be advised to make use of additional screenings or weight management.9) Reduce Fraud And Enhance SecuritySome studies have shown that this particular industry is 200% more likely to experience data breaches than any other industry. The reason is simple: personal data is extremely valuable and profitable on the black markets. And any breach would have dramatic consequences. With that in mind, many organizations started to use analytics to help prevent security threats by identifying changes in network traffic, or any other behavior that reflects a cyber-attack. Of course, big data has inherent security issues and many think that using it will make the organizations more vulnerable than they already are. But advances in security such as encryption technology, firewalls, anti-virus software, etc, answer that need for more security, and the benefits brought largely overtake the risks.Likewise, it can help prevent fraud and inaccurate claims in a systemic, repeatable way. Analytics help streamline the processing of insurance claims, enabling patients to get better returns on their claims and caregivers are paid faster. For instance, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they saved over $210.7 million in frauds in just a year.10) TelemedicineTelemedicine has been present on the market for over 40 years, but only today, with the arrival of online video conferences, smartphones, wireless devices, and wearables, has it been able to come into full bloom. The term refers to delivery of remote clinical services using technology.It is used for primary consultations and initial diagnosis, remote patient monitoring, and medical education for health professionals. Some more specific uses include telesurgery – doctors can perform operations with the use of robots and high-speed real-time data delivery without physically being in the same location with a patient.Clinicians use telemedicine to provide personalized treatment plans and prevent hospitalization or re-admission. Such use of healthcare data analytics can be linked to the use of predictive analytics as seen previously. It allows clinicians to predict acute medical events in advance and prevent deterioration of patient’s conditions.By keeping patients away from hospitals, telemedicine helps to reduce costs and improve the quality of service. Patients can avoid waiting lines and doctors don’t waste time for unnecessary consultations and paperwork. Telemedicine also improves the availability of care as patients’ state can be monitored and consulted anywhere and anytime.11) Integrating Big Data With Medical ImagingMedical imaging is vital and each year in the US about 600 million imaging procedures are performed. Analyzing and storing manually these images is expensive both in terms of time and money, as radiologists need to examine each image individually, while hospitals need to store them for several years.Medical imaging provider Carestream explains how big data analytics for healthcare could change the way images are read: algorithms developed analyzing hundreds of thousands of images could identify specific patterns in the pixels and convert it into a number to help the physician with the diagnosis. They even go further, saying that it could be possible that radiologists will no longer need to look at the images, but instead analyze the outcomes of the algorithms that will inevitably study and remember more images than they could in a lifetime. This would undoubtedly impact the role of radiologists, their education and required skillset.12) A Way To Prevent Unnecessary ER VisitsSaving time, money and energy using big data analytics for healthcare is necessary. What if we told you that over the course of 3 years, one woman visited the ER more than 900 times? That situation is a reality in Oakland, California, where a woman who suffers from mental illness and substance abuse went to a variety of local hospitals on an almost daily basis.This woman’s issues were exacerbated by the lack of shared medical records between local emergency rooms, increasing the cost to taxpayers and hospitals, and making it harder for this woman to get good care. As Tracy Schrider, who coordinates the care management program at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland stated in a Kaiser Health News article:“Everybody meant well. But she was being referred to three different substance abuse clinics and two different mental health clinics, and she had two case management workers both working on housing. It was not only bad for the patient, it was also a waste of precious resources for both hospitals.”In order to prevent future situations like this from happening, Alameda county hospitals came together to create a program called PreManage ED, which shares patient records between emergency departments.This system lets ER staff know things like:If the patient they are treating has already had certain tests done at other hospitals, and what the results of those tests areIf the patient in question already has a case manager at another hospital, preventing unnecessary assignmentsWhat advice has already been given to the patient, so that a coherent message to the patient can be maintained by providersThis is another great example where the application of healthcare analytics is useful and needed. In the past, hospitals without PreManage ED would repeat tests over and over, and even if they could see that a test had been done at another hospital, they would have to go old school and request or send a long fax just to get the information they needed.How To Use Big Data In HealthcareAll in all, we’ve seen through these 12 examples of big data application in healthcare three main trends: the patients experience could improve dramatically, including quality of treatment and satisfaction; the overall health of the population should also be improved over time; and the general costs should be reduced. Let’s have a look now at a concrete example of how to use data analytics in healthcare, in a hospital for instance:**click to enlarge**This healthcare dashboard provides you with the overview needed as a hospital director or as a facility manager. Gathering in one central point all the data on every division of the hospital, the attendance, its nature, the costs incurred, etc., you have the big picture of your facility, which will be of a great help to run it smoothly.You can see here the most important metrics concerning various aspects: the number of patients that were welcomed in your facility, how long they stayed and where, how much it cost to treat them, and the average waiting time in emergency rooms. Such a holistic view helps top-management identify potential bottlenecks, spot trends and patterns over time, and in general assess the situation. This is key in order to make better-informed decisions that will improve the overall operations performance, with the goal of treating patients better and having the right staffing resources.Our List of 12 Big Data Examples In HealthcareThe industry is changing, and like any other, big data is starting to transform it – but there is still a lot of work to be done. The sector slowly adopts the new technologies that will push it into the future, helping it to make better-informed decisions, improving operations, etc. In a nutshell, here’s a short list of the examples we have gone over in this article. With healthcare data analytics, you can:Predict the daily patients income to tailor staffing accordinglyUse Electronic Health Records (EHRs)Use real-time alerting for instant careHelp in preventing opioid abuse in the USEnhance patient engagement in their own healthUse health data for a better-informed strategic planningResearch more extensively to cure cancerUse predictive analyticsReduce fraud and enhance data securityPractice telemedicineIntegrate medical imaging for an broader diagnosisPrevent unnecessary ER visitsExclusive Bonus Content: Boost your healthcare business with Big Data Get our guide with 5 questions you can use to increase profits!These 12 examples of big data in healthcare prove that the development of medical applications of data should be the apple in the eye of data science, as they have the potential to save money and most importantly, people’s lives. Already today it allows for early identification of illnesses of individual patients and socioeconomic groups and taking preventive actions because, as we all know, prevention is better than cure.12 Examples of Big Data In Healthcare That Can Save PeopleAn Introduction to Diagnosing Diseases with Patient Data