Making sense of big data in health research: Towards an EU action plan.

Medicine and healthcare are undergoing profound changes. Whole-genome sequencing and high-resolution imaging technologies are key drivers of this rapid and crucial transformation. Technological innovation combined with automation and miniaturization has triggered an explosion in data production that will soon reach exabyte proportions. How are we going to deal with this exponential increase in data production? The potential of "big data" for improving health is enormous but, at the same time, we face a wide range of challenges to overcome urgently. Europe is very proud of its cultural diversity; however, exploitation of the data made available through advances in genomic medicine, imaging, and a wide range of mobile health applications or connected devices is hampered by numerous historical, technical, legal, and political barriers. European health systems and databases are diverse and fragmented. There is a lack of harmonization of data formats, processing, analysis, and data transfer, which leads to incompatibilities and lost opportunities. Legal frameworks for data sharing are evolving. Clinicians, researchers, and citizens need improved methods, tools, and training to generate, analyze, and query data effectively. Addressing these barriers will contribute to creating the European Single Market for health, which will improve health and healthcare for all Europeans

Erratum to: Making sense of big data in health research: towards an EU action plan

The published article [1] has two points of confusion in the section entitled “Technical challenges related to the management of electronic health records”. Firstly, the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) has developed policies and guidelines on approaches to data sharing meant to enable and improve the development of diagnoses and therapies for rare diseases. However, at present, IRDiRC has not developed best practices for the management of electronic health records (EHRs). Secondly, RARE-Bestpractices is a European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7) funded initiative, independent of IRDiRC. RARE-Bestpractices contributes to IRDiRC goals and objectives; however the initiative itself is not sponsored nor connected to IRDiRC