ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the challenges and hurdles, both clinical and cultural, for big data in radiation oncology. It focuses on issues with data acquisition throughout the patient clinical flow, limitations in current industry and academic center solutions, the crucial need to maintain patient privacy and security, addressing patient information and health literacy, and ethical and social concerns of precision medicine. Physicians who reported high availability of medical records may practice with an electronic health record (EHR) and/or electronic referral system, both of which potentially facilitate care coordination. Health information technology tools such as EHRs have the potential to significantly improve care delivery and patient outcomes. Watson Oncology was developed to summarize key medical attributes of a patient and provide information to oncologists to help them deliver treatment options based on iterative feedback and machine learning from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center oncologists.
