the term “big data” has become a buzzword in recent
years, with its usage frequency having doubled each year
in the last few years according to common search engines.
Fig. 1 illustrates the fast increase in the number of publications
referring to “big data,” regardless of disciplines, as well
as those in the healthcare domain. Although the popularity of
big data is recent, the underlying challenges have existed long
before and have been actively pursued in health research. Big
data in health is concerned with meaningful datasets that are
too big, too fast, and too complex for healthcare providers to
process and interpret with existing tools. It is driven by continuing
effort in making health services more efficient and sustainable
given the demands of a constantly expanding population
with an inverted age pyramid, as well as the paradigm shift of