Dr Jacob Ballon Discusses the Opportunity to Use Big Data to Identify Types of Psychotic Illnesses

Jacob Ballon, MD, MPH, clinical associate professor, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University, explained how large databases can help researchers understand the variety of psychotic illnesses, potentially leading to more personalized treatments.

Transcript

How could we potentially leverage the power of big data and technology to better treat or prevent psychosis?

There’s a great opportunity in looking at big data to be able to better appreciate the heterogeneity of different disorders. Schizophrenia is not just simply 1 thing, and as we are able to utilize large data sets, whether it’s through genomics or other -omics, or through treatment outcomes through Medicaid databases or other large databases, we’ll be able to hopefully parse out exactly what are the different types of psychotic illnesses that people have, to better tailor treatment and hopefully achieve more personalized medicine.