PUBLICATION EXCLUSIVE: IRIS Registry offers many benefits for US ophthalmologists

Big data is defined as extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. An extraordinary amount of human and financial capital is being invested toward collecting and analyzing big data. Potential contributions to medicine include enhancing the diagnosis and management of disease; targeting personalized medicine, in which patient profiles can be utilized to select ideal treatments, which today is especially useful in oncology; improving practice management; determining group and individual buying patterns to enhance marketing; and of course, allowing our federal and state government to screen for fraud and abuse in provider care and billing patterns.In the genetic area, Google’s DNAstack and the 23andMe DNA database each have big data on DNA predictors in health care on more than 1 million people. To me, the best positive example of big data in ophthalmology is the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Intelligent Research in Sight (IRIS) Registry. The best negative example for us physicians is big data mining by payers to screen for potential targets for billing errors and, in the case of some insurers, looking for more expensive providers and expelling them from provider panels. Depending on your perspective, both could be considered positive, but from my perspective, there is much opportunity for abuse in the latter. I am going to focus on the positive.