Fishing for answers in an ocean of data: The potential for big data analytics to enhance our knowledge of the complex regional pain syndromes

In an era of expanding costs and declining reimbursement, the healthcare industry has dramatically expanded the collection of demographic and clinical data to facilitate billing efficiency and maintain financial solvency. Electronic health data collection has primarily emphasized the capture of diagnostic coding, medication delivery, laboratory utilization, and procedural interventions to support third party reimbursement claims, improve efficiency, and provide transparency. Although much of the electronic stored data was never directly intended to answer clinical questions, or guide clinical care, the use of data analytics has created opportunities to winnow through the vast data collections and pull out useful insights into previously unrecognized patterns of common and uncommon medical disorders [1–3].

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