A Cloud Based Big Data Based Online Health Analytics for Rural NICUs and PICUs in India: Opportunities and Challenges

High frequency physiological data has great potential to provide new insights for many conditions patients can develop in critical care when utilized by Big Data Analytics based Clinical Decision Support Systems, such as Artemis. Artemis was deployed in NICU at SickKids Hospital in Toronto in August 2009. It employs all the potentiality of big data. Both original data together with newly generated analytics is stored in the data persistence component of Artemis. Real-time analytics is performed in the Online Analytics component. The knowledge extraction component of the system takes care of data mining which is enabled to support clinical research for various conditions. Artemis to date has been utilized in three different implementations. However the use of Artemis still holds many challenges for lower resource settings. This research demonstrates the challenges and opportunities to use Artemis cloud as a cloud computing based Health Analytics-as-a-Service approach for the provision of remote real-time patient monitoring for low resource settings. We present case study research to demonstrate the implications, opportunities and challenges of utilizing Artemis in a low resource setting for small and remote pediatric critical care units viz NICU/PICU in India. Utilizing potentiality of big data within pediatric intensive care units has great potential to improve healthcare in these low resource settings.