Studying Students' Knowledge of the Benefits, Challenges, and Applications of Big Data Analytics in Healthcare

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the students' familiarity from different universities of Mashhad with the benefits, applications and challenges of Big Data analysis. This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted on students of different fields, including Medical Engineering, Medical Informatics, Medical Records and Health Information Management in Mashhad-Iran. A questionnaire was designed. The designed questionnaire evaluated the opinion of students regarding benefits, challenges and applications of Big Data analytics. 200 students participated and participants' opinions were evaluated descriptively and analytically. Most students were between 20 and 30 years old. 43.5% had no work experience. Current and previous field of study of most of the students were HIT, HIM, and Medical Records. Most of the participants in this study were undergraduates. 61.5% were economically active, 54.5% were exposed to Big Data. The mean scores of participants in benefits, applications, and challenges section were 3.71, 3.68, and 3.71, respectively, and process management was significant in different age groups (p=0.046), information, modelling, research, and health informatics across different fields of studies were significant (p=0.015, 0.033, 0.001, 0.024) Information and research were significantly different between groups (p=0.043 and 0.019), research in groups with / without economic activity was significant (p= 0.017) and information in exposed / non-exposed to Big Data groups was significant (p=0.02). Despite the importance and benefits of Big Data analytics, students' lack of familiarity with the necessity and importance is significant. The field of study and level of study does not appear to have an effect on the degree of knowledge of individuals regarding Big Data analysis. The design of technical training courses in this field may increase the level of knowledge of individuals regarding Big Data analysis.