Big Data

First, it should be understood, that Big Data is a term which means different things to different people. Our perspective is simple. Big Data is any dataset which cannot be engineered or analysed using standard applications such as Excel, Access or equivalents. It might not be that big in the real sense of the word but is still impossible for most users to deal with efficiently without specialist applications such as Board MIT and MS PowerBI and the necessary BI expertise. S&B have spent many years developing and maintaining our Open Source Intelligence Reporting Information Store OSIRIS now referred to as our DataCube.

The DataCube

“A dynamic & flexible data store containing a range of de-normalized data, usually held in csv format or within the OSIRIS SQL Server Database“

From Data to DataCube and Actionable Intelligence

To undertake any BI exercise, it is first necessary to carry out the necessary data procurement, engineering and analysis to facilitate a rounded understanding of the problem being addressed. Luckily, for most Health-related projects much of the data is available from various government web sites under "Open Government License".

To facilitate the regular updating of the DataCube & BI Application it is necessary to carryout data engineering for a full range of OGL Datasets.

There are several datasets within the DataCube which require significantly more engineering to make them consumable for business intelligence, including ePACT, Diagnostic Imaging Data and eReferral data, and a large number of datasets of a similar level of complexity, while others are more straightforward. In many cases, if you find you need a dataset analysed quickly that you have not worked with previously, there can be 7-10 days of work required to turn this into a fit for purpose analysis.

Our data reservoir is constantly growing and evolving as we discover more sources, this gives us more and more dimensions to the analysis and models we produce, and the business problems we can help find solutions for.