Erin Schafer, PhD, is a professor and the director of graduate studies in audiology and speech-audiology and speech-language pathology at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. She is a board member of the Auditory Implant Initiative.
The term “big data” refers to large datasets that are too complex for traditional data-processing software and instead require sophisticated machine-learning analytics. The use of big data in health care is receiving increased attention by consumers, researchers, and funding agencies as analyses of these data promote evidence-based decisions by physicians and providers (Ristevski and Chen, 2018).