Unlocking the power of healthcare data
With Microsoft’s recent announcement to acquire Revolution Analytics, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the implications for advanced analytics in health. Here’s a quick run-down of what we’ve done and why this acquisition is important to our focus on Health Analytics.
Revolution Analytics is the leading commercial provider of software and services based on the “R” statistical computing language. For those who aren’t familiar with R, it’s an open-source programming language developed specifically for statistical computing, machine learning, and data visualization. R is backed by a thriving community of more than 2 million users, making it one of the most widely used statistical programming languages worldwide. The acquisition has large implications for the healthcare industry. Healthcare data already accounts for a big portion of the digital universe—and the amount continues to increase by nearly 50 percent a year, according to IDC. As the volume of health data skyrockets, the industry will need more powerful analytical tools to make data-driven decisions.
R is already integral to much of the work being done. For example, CardioDx, a cardiovascular genomic diagnostics company located in Palo Alto, California, is using Revolution R to analyze complex clinical data from thousands of patients, helping doctors to determine the likelihood their patients have obstructive coronary artery disease. Likewise, the State University of New York at Buffalo, one of the world’s leading research centers for multiple sclerosis (MS), is using the platform to analyze numerous genetic and environmental factors that predispose people to developing MS. Knowing which patients are at risk of specific diseases, healthcare providers can intervene more quickly, to stop diseases from progressing—and, in some cases from happening in the first place.
With the Microsoft acquisition, customers will have more options to use advanced analytics within Microsoft data platforms on-premises, in the cloud using Microsoft Azure, or in a hybrid cloud environment. We plan to expand the platform to more customers, helping them build scalable solutions that unlock the potential of big data.
The acquisition builds on Microsoft’s participation in the open-source community, which includes contributions to projects like Hive, YARN, REEF, and others in the Apache Hadoop community. We will continue to support the evolution of both open-source and commercial distributions of Revolution R across multiple operating systems.
To learn more about the acquisition, please check out our original blog post. We’ll keep you posted as we complete the acquisition. In the meantime, if you have thoughts or questions as to how healthcare can take advantage of this exciting platform, we’d love to hear from you, so please don’t hesitate to email us, or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.
