Save the date for Radboud New Frontiers 2018: Big data, better healthcare?

17 January 2018

On 1 and 2 November the 12th edition of the Radboud New Frontiers symposium will take place. During the first day of this symposium we will explore what big data and healthcare data science have to offer for personalized healthcare. This day is targeted at researchers but open for everyone with interest in the subject. Registration will open soon!

With new scientific insights and increasing technological possibilities medical research is rapidly changing. Increased computer capacity, availability of data and connectivity between databases enable big data analysis and have propelled the development of fields such as multi-omics, network medicine and computational medicine. In combination with demographic changes such as the rise of lifestyle related and chronic diseases, insights derived from the application of these new methodologies change the way we look at diseases: what once was one disease increasingly turns out to be a collection of entities with their own etiology, diagnosis and treatment. Vice versa, we begin to understand how health and disease are inherently multiscale phenomena that emerge out of complex and dynamic interactions within and between a person and his environment. Technologies like lab on a chip and self measurement with all kind of sensors change the way we collect data to make a diagnosis and the way we monitor diseases. In the background we see that the complexity of healthcare delivery and organisation has increased, not always in favour of the patient. However, the essence of medicine remained; the impact on patients’ lives of being confronted with illness and the importance of the caring relationship in a patient journey.

In this context, the topic of this conference is to explore what big data and healthcare data science have to offer for (research into) personalized healthcare:

• what is the potential promise of big data application to healthcare;
• what are examples of successful application of data science and how can these be applied to benefit health;
• what are the technical, organizational, ethical and epistemological limitations of the application of data science in the field of health;
• and will big data help to bridge the divide between medicine-as-a-science and medicine-as-an-art, and improve the individual patient journey?

The day will begin with an inspiring peek into the future promise of big data application to healthcare, that will be followed by several high quality examples of applications of data science to health and care.  These examples will present some key methodological aspects/principles of data science. The second part of the day will explore the boundaries of big data and healthcare data science from the technical, ethical and clinical perspective.