Data Mining

Data Mining: how it can be utilized in Ethiopia’s health sector

By Senayt Nur

Data mining: the future of the health care system

Collecting data that can be analyzed using patterns and trends dates back to the Bayes’ theorem and ‘regression analysis’ that were used in the 1700s and 1800s respectively. For decades, supercomputers have been used to collect data, analyze market research reports, determine patterns of customer preferences, product usage, and the general demand and supply patterns in order to increase revenue and decrease unnecessary costs.

In plain terms, “data mining is a process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information”. Although the technology have been around for a while, advancements in computer’s processing power, disk storage, and statistical software have dramatically increased the accuracy of ‘data analysis’ while driving down it’s cost.

Before digging any deeper into data mining, let me first explain the difference between data and information. Data is collection of any facts, numbers, or text that can be processed by a computer.

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