Obstacles to Health Big Data Utilization Based on the Perceptions and Demands of Health Care Workers in South Korea: Web-Based Survey Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND This study focuses on the potential of health big data in the Korean context. Despite the availability of health big data and pan-government efforts to increase data use, the use of health big data is restricted to public institutions that hold big data and conduct public interest. In order to increase the use of health big data, it is necessary to identify and develop measures to meet various demands for health big data from individuals, private companies, and research institutes. Despite the need to enhance the usefulness of health big data and develop a system for supporting health big data analysis and use, there has been limited research on the subject. OBJECTIVE To identify the perceptions of and demands for health big data analysis and use among workers in healthcare-related occupations and clarify the obstacles to the use of health big data. METHODS From May 8 to May 18, 2022, we conducted an online survey among 390 healthcare-related workers in Korea. We used the chi-square test to estimate the differences between occupations. We expressed the results analysis by item in frequency and percentage and expressed the difficulties in analyzing health big data in mean and standard deviation. RESULTS The respondents revealing the need to use health big data, and low utilization of health big data in work-related fields accounted for 86.4% and 38.2%, respectively. The respondents who never used health big data accounted for 65.6%. The lack of awareness about the source of the desired data was the most cited reason for non-use by 39.6% of the respondents. Among the respondent users, the most cited obstacle to using health big data was the “difficulty in data integration and expression unit matching,” followed by “missing value processing and noise removal” and “data removal and type conversion that did not fit the purpose.” The respondents who were willing to use a system supporting big data analysis and use accounted for 91.8%. Healthcare service development was most cited as the application area for health big data by 21% of the respondents. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate respondents’ high awareness of and demand for health big data. However, they also reveal the low utilization of health big data and the need to support health care workers in their analysis and use of health big data. Hence, this study recommends the development of a customized support system that meets specific requirements of big data analysis by users such as individuals, non-governmental agencies, and academia.