By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    healthcare cybersecurity
    4 Helpful Tips on How to Protect Your Medical Practice Against Cyber Attacks
    October 24, 2021
    Health Check Diagnosis Medical Condition Analysis Concept
    6 Health Woes With Online Remedies
    January 19, 2022
    Eight Things Men Should Know About the Male Menopause
    Eight Things Men Should Know About the Male Menopause
    April 24, 2022
    Latest News
    Emotional Peace: The Psychological Benefits Of Funeral Preplanning
    October 2, 2023
    Health Benefits of Taking a Vacation to Reduce Your Stress
    October 2, 2023
    First Aid Training Enhancing Workplace Health and Safety
    September 25, 2023
    Beyond the Clinic: Medical Surveys Are a Roadmap to Passive Income for Doctors
    September 23, 2023
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Practice Pointers in the Wake of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Privacy Settlement
    August 13, 2014
    Paul Rosen
    Benchmarking: The Case for Looking Outside the Healthcare Box
    January 14, 2016
    ACOs
    Will Physicians Ever Embrace ACOs?
    September 21, 2014
    Latest News
    Job Seekers with Disabilities Should at Health Insurance Benefits
    September 12, 2023
    Reasons That Drug Prices Are Rising to Unsustainable Levels
    September 12, 2023
    How Revenue Lifecycle Management Helps Healthcare Providers to Optimize Business Operations
    September 6, 2023
    The Hidden Benefits of Practice Exams for Medical Professionals
    September 6, 2023
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Irony and the Church of Big Data
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Aa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Aa
Search
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Irony and the Church of Big Data
BusinessTechnology

Irony and the Church of Big Data

ckapsa
Last updated: 2015/05/13 at 8:00 AM
ckapsa
Share
6 Min Read
microscope
SHARE

microscopeBig Data in medicine is a faith-based initiative. True believers know, deep in their hearts, that the Church of Big Data will solve all miseries that beset American health care. They’re evangelists for their cause, spending billions of dollars to spread the Word of Big Data. Many good folks of unshakeable beliefs are immune to irony. Big Data disciples are no different.

Contents
True BelieverSkepticIrony Abounds

microscopeBig Data in medicine is a faith-based initiative. True believers know, deep in their hearts, that the Church of Big Data will solve all miseries that beset American health care. They’re evangelists for their cause, spending billions of dollars to spread the Word of Big Data. Many good folks of unshakeable beliefs are immune to irony. Big Data disciples are no different.

And no believer has pushed the faith as ardently as Vinod Khosla.

True Believer

Khosla is a high priest in the Church of Big Data. He was a cofounder of Sun Microsystems, the computer hardware/software/networking company bought out by Oracle in 2009. He’s now a partner in Khosla Ventures. The company “…provides venture assistance and strategic advice to entrepreneurs working on breakthrough technologies.”

More Read

best health apps

5 Tech Apps and Gadgets to Maintain Your Health Connectivity

Step-by-Step Guide to EHR Implementation
Developing Meditations Apps to Fight the Mental Health Crisis
Harnessing the Power of Technology to Shape the Future of Proactive Health and Disease Diagnostics
Should Hospitals Use Meditech EHR or Advancedmd EHR?

Khosla Ventures has two dozen health technology-related companies in its portfolio. The high priest of Big Data has vested interests in proselytizing for the faith. By way of understatement.

Skeptic

John Ioannidis is the antithesis of true believer. Ioannidis is a distinguished professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a world-renowned researcher. He is the author of “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” (The paper is freely available online.) The work has had 1.3 million views since publication in PLOS/Medicine ten years ago; it might be the most influential journal article published in the 21st century.

Ioannidis begins by noting in the summary, “There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false.” He then lists the many ways research conclusions stray from the truth including:

✦ Researchers claim “conclusive research findings” based on just one study.

✦ The statistical methods used to analyze findings are often unsuitable.

✦ Various biases influence the research including the study design, data gathering or analysis.

✦ The study is too small or, paradoxically, too large.

✦ The researchers have financial entanglements and will gain from “positive” study results.

✦ The field of study is fiercely competitive and the researchers want to make names for themselves.

Ioannidis concludes with recommendations for improvement. Among them are vigorous efforts to lessen bias, careful choice of hypotheses and registration of studies.

So, aside from working a smartphone’s throw from each other (Khosla in Menlo Park, Ioannidis in Palo Alto/Stanford), what do these men have in common?

Irony Abounds

Vinod Khosla granted an interview to Ariana Eunjung Cha of the Washington Post. The interview, “Vinod Khosla: Medicine’s big data revolution”, was published May 8th, 2015 as part of The Human Upgrade series. Much of the interview is self-aggrandizing chatter about companies in his Khosla Ventures corral.

But in the middle of talking up his investments, Khosla makes a startling claim. He says, “A lot of what I’ve been thinking about started with articles by Dr. John Ioannidis at Stanford School of Medicine”, referring to the 2005 PLOS/Medicine piece.

Say, what?

Khosla digs his hole deeper, saying:

What he [Ioannidis] found through decades of meta-research is that half of what’s in medical studies is just plain wrong… His research is focused on why they are wrong and why all sorts of biases are introduced in medical studies and medical practice.

Three possibilities come to mind to account for the surprising assertion. Khosla hasn’t read the paper. Or he didn’t understand it. Or he is oblivious to the irony of citing Ioannidis’s classic paper to support his commercial interests.

Possibility one: Khosla’s a busy man. Maybe he only skimmed it. Or a minion gave him a fast synopsis. Possibility two: Khosla is an extraordinarily bright man who’s built tech empires. Difficult to imagine he didn’t understand the paper. It’s timeless work because it’s clear and without ambiguity. (Even your statistics-challenged blogger had no trouble.)

That leaves possibility three. Irony. Vinod Khosla cannot claim that, while most published medical research is false, Big Data will solve the problem. There is no published research on the medical benefits of Big Data. And if there were, it would likely be confounded by at least one of Ioannidis’s research proscriptions: “The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.”

Khosla, high priest in the Church of Big Data, seems blind to the irony of citing Ioannidis’s work to prop up his investments. But not all of us can make that Big Data leap of faith.

TAGGED: big data

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
ckapsa May 13, 2015 May 13, 2015
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Share
Previous Article pharmaphorum Democracy Comes to Healthcare
Next Article pricewaterhousecooper privacy healthcare Mobile Health and Data Safety: Convenience vs. Privacy

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
4.5k Followers Follow
2.8k Followers Pin
136k Subscribers Subscribe

Latest News

drug-free lifestyle
Healthy Routines Post-Rehab: Building A Drug-Free Lifestyle
Addiction Addiction Recovery October 2, 2023
emotional peace regarding funeral
Emotional Peace: The Psychological Benefits Of Funeral Preplanning
Wellness October 2, 2023
Andropause hormonal decline
The Benefits of TRT for Andropause and Hormonal Decline
Wellness September 28, 2023
cancer-prevention
The Importance of Lipoma Examination in Cancer Prevention
Cancer September 28, 2023

You Might also Like

quality of life
Technology

Elevating Quality of Life: An In-depth Examination of Stairlift Technological Advancements

September 17, 2023
medical billing training
Medicare

Navigating Through the Essentials: Medical Billing Training for Beginners

September 12, 2023
healthcare providers
Hospital Administration

How Revenue Lifecycle Management Helps Healthcare Providers to Optimize Business Operations

September 6, 2023
3 Beneficial Ways Technology Impacting Your Wellness and Health
Technology

3 Beneficial Ways Technology Impacting Your Wellness and Health

September 5, 2023
Subscribe

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Follow US
© 2008-2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?