At first, parts of the scientific community were slow to embrace
data mining. This was at least partially due to the marketing
hype and wild claims made by some software salespeople
and consultants. However, data mining is now moving
into the mainstream of science and engineering. Data mining
has come of age because of the confluence of three factors. The
first is the ability to inexpensively capture, store and process
tremendous amounts of data. The second is advances in database
technology that allow the stored data to be organised and
stored in ways that facilitate speedy answers to complex queries.
Finally, there are developments and improvements in
analysis methods that allow them to be effectively applied to
these very large and complex databases. It is important to remember
that data mining is a tool, not a magic wand. You
can’t simply throw your data at a data mining tool and expect
it to produce reliable or even valid results. You still need to
know your business, to understand your data, and to understand
the analytical methods you use. Furthermore, the patterns
uncovered by data mining must be verified in the real
world. Just because data mining predicts that a gene will express
a particular protein, or that a drug is best sold to a certain
group of physicians, it doesn’t mean this prediction is valid
in the real world. You still need to verify the prediction with
experiments to confirm the existence of a causal relationship.
Healthcare Data Mining Applications include evaluation of
treatment effectiveness; management of healthcare; customer
relationship management; and detection of fraud and abuse.