Understanding the Role of Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics in Healthcare: A Multi-Stakeholder Approach

The volume, velocity and variety of data is continuously rising. While many industry sectors are already applying big data analytics for various purposes, the use of big data in healthcare remains limited. A major reason for this development lies in the fragmented structure and conflicts of interests among the various stakeholders in the sector. To date, there is a lack of a comprehensive study that integrates insights from both practical and academic literature with expert knowledge to create a holistic picture of the main use cases, challenges and benefits of predictive and prescriptive analytics (PPA) in healthcare. To fill this gap, we investigated the role of PPA in healthcare from different stakeholder perspectives. We conducted a systematic literature review and applied content analysis to identify the main patterns extracted from the literature. The findings were triangulated with insights gained from 9 interviews with healthcare experts. Overall, we identified 8 use case clusters, 18 key benefits and 10 key challenges for the stakeholders involved. Furthermore, the role of PPA in healthcare is discussed from different stakeholders’ perspectives. Our findings reveal that the stakeholders pursue contrasting interests, which require legal regulation such that PPA can diffuse on a wider scale