Abstract

Nowadays, we are generating a high volume of data in all domains such as social media, industries, stock market, healthcare systems etc. Most of data volume have been generated in the past two years. This massive amount of data can bring benefits and draw knowledge to individuals, governments, industries, and assess in the process of decisions making. In healthcare sector, enormous volume of data generated from healthcare providers, where data are stored and resided in digital systems, hence, data are more accessible for reference and future use. The ultimate vision for working with health Big Data is to support the process of improving the quality of service in healthcare providers, reduce the medical-mistakes, and to provide a promote consultation and answers when needed. This paper describes the fundamentals and significant of Big Data, the life cycle, tools, and challenges for Big Data approach. Further, the paper tries to bring more attention to Big Data in healthcare sector; by focusing on Big Data applications and some attempts to utilize Big Data in healthcare. It’s not important whether the attempts succeeded or failed, however, these attempts draw a road path for further investigation and opened the door for further researches.

Key words: Keywords: Big Data, Healthcare, Hadoop, Google Flu Trends, Big Data Challenges, Cycle of Big Data management.