Book Image

Practical Big Data Analytics

By : Nataraj Dasgupta
Book Image

Practical Big Data Analytics

By: Nataraj Dasgupta

Overview of this book

Big Data analytics relates to the strategies used by organizations to collect, organize, and analyze large amounts of data to uncover valuable business insights that cannot be analyzed through traditional systems. Crafting an enterprise-scale cost-efficient Big Data and machine learning solution to uncover insights and value from your organization’s data is a challenge. Today, with hundreds of new Big Data systems, machine learning packages, and BI tools, selecting the right combination of technologies is an even greater challenge. This book will help you do that. With the help of this guide, you will be able to bridge the gap between the theoretical world of technology and the practical reality of building corporate Big Data and data science platforms. You will get hands-on exposure to Hadoop and Spark, build machine learning dashboards using R and R Shiny, create web-based apps using NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, and even learn how to write R code for neural networks. By the end of the book, you will have a very clear and concrete understanding of what Big Data analytics means, how it drives revenues for organizations, and how you can develop your own Big Data analytics solution using the different tools and methods articulated in this book.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface

Tracking physician payments with real-world data


Physicians and hospitals alike receive payments from various external organizations, such as pharmaceutical companies who engage sales representatives to not only educate practitioners on their products, but also provide gifts or payments in kind or otherwise. In theory, gifts or payments made to physicians are not intended to influence their prescribing behavior, and pharmaceutical companies adopt careful measures to maintain checks and balances on payments being made to healthcare providers.

In 2010, President Obama's signature Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known in popular parlance as Obamacare, went into effect. Alongside the ACA, a separate legislation known as the Sunshine Act made reporting items of monetary value (directly or indirectly) mandatory for pharmaceutical companies and other organizations. While such rules existed in the past, rarely were such rules available in the public domain. By making detailed payment records made...