ABSTRACT
With the development and maintenance of large health data repositories of structured and unstructured data, health organizations are increasingly using data analytics, including data mining, to analyze and utilize the patterns and relationships found in the data to make improved clinical and other health-related decisions. This chapter discusses the potential of data mining in healthcare and describes the various applications of data mining methods and techniques. It offers a brief review of examples of data mining in healthcare. The chapter describes an ongoing project in the mining of the unstructured information in cancer blogs. Health data, including general patient profiles, clinical data, insurance data, and other medical data, are being created for various purposes, including regulatory compliance, public health policy analysis and research, and diagnosis and treatment. The value for healthcare delivery is enhanced when the data mining has specific purposes and health/medical questions to answer.
