“Results from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) show that between 2009 and 2010, the percentage of physicians reporting having an electronic medical record/electronic health record (EMR/EHR) system that meets the criteria of a basic system increased by 14% and a fully functional system increased by 46%.”
“In the global marketplace, businesses, suppliers and customers are creating and consuming vast amounts of information. Gartner predicts that enterprise data in all forms will grow 650 percent over the next five years. According to IDC, the world’s volume of data doubles every 18 months. This flood of data, often referred to as “information overload,” “data deluge” and “big data,” clearly creates a challenge for business leaders.”
“Early this year, Gartner suggested that a ‘data deluge’ has begun. In his recent Dataspora Blog post about ‘Big Data’ and what it means, author Michael Driscoll presents a unique and interesting perspective on the massive amounts of data being generated and stored. According to The 451 Group’s definition…”
“Gartner released a report in November entitled, ‘Top 10 Technology Trends Impacting Information Infrastructure, 2011.’ Two of the top ten trends were ‘Entity Resolution and Analysis’ and ‘Master Data Management.’”
“According to Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., National Medical then launched a campaign to force Ven-A-Care out of business. But in fighting back, Ven-A-Care staff discovered National Medical was paying kickbacks to doctors who prescribed medicines and services that weren’t needed, then billing Medicare and Medicaid exorbitant sums far in excess of what the medicines and services cost. The Justice Department eventually got a $486 million settlement from National Medical — and Ven-A-Care received $40 million as its reward under the False Claims Act.”
“Russian financial institutions reported 120 trillion roubles (2.44 trillion pounds) of suspicious transactions to the anti-money laundering watchdog in the first nine months of 2010, the Kommersant daily reported on Monday.”
Early this year, Gartner suggested that a “data deluge” has begun. In his recent Dataspora Blog post about “Big Data” and what it means, author Michael Driscoll presents a unique and interesting perspective on the massive amounts of data being generated and stored. According to The 451 Group’s definition,
“Big data is a term applied to data sets that are large, complex and dynamic (or a combination thereof) and for which there is a requirement to capture, manage and process the data set in its entirety, such that it is not possible to process the data using traditional software tools and analytic techniques within tolerable time frames.”
While the term “Big Data” continues to evolve, no one argues that there are unique problems associated with capturing and using it, and part of the challenge derives from the multiple disparate sources of data.
Source: Avanade Global Survey: The Business Impact of Big Data, November 2010
“Immediately after the Christmas bomber incident in 2009, we highlighted the positive role that broader deployment of (id)entity resolution software could play in preventing terrorist actions. That thought was seconded this week in a piece published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) entitled ‘Better data analysis for a safer world’…”
“According to the same official statement, Louisiana doled out more than $850 million in taxpayer funds to drug companies to pay for drugs between 1991 and 2009. But a significant portion of this amount was most likely fraudulent because of the billing scheme drug companies utilize to get reimbursed. The way it works is drug companies report what are called the Average Wholesale Prices (AWPs) for drugs, and are subsequently reimbursed by state Medicaid programs for these amounts. But the lawsuit alleges that drug companies were marking up these costs as high as 6000 percent above actual costs.”
“Last month a father and son who worked at Burlington store were charged, along with another family member, with stealing a $12.5-million Super 7 jackpot in 2003. The case has not yet come to trial. Mr. Vikoren said that for membership cards to ensure consumer protection, people need to keep their card safe.”
“But the whole thing made me think about whether the TSA could institute a ‘trusted traveler’ program that allows vetted frequent flyers easier access through security. It’s an idea supported by the U.S. Travel Association. The organization, which promotes the interests of the travel industry, has called upon the government to consider such a measure, especially because the Department of Homeland Security is already working with airlines and online reservation systems on Secure Flight, where manifests of domestic and inbound passengers are checked against government watch lists.”
Immediately after the Christmas bomber incident in 2009, we highlighted the positive role that broader deployment of (id)entity resolution software could play in preventing terrorist actions. That thought was seconded this week in a piece published by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) entitled “Better data analysis for a safer world”:
The technology to connect the dots from disparate data sources already exists, and has done for quite some time. It’s called “entity resolution,” and corporations have been using it for years to compile and ensure accuracy in consumer data. Entity resolution can help avoid many of the mistakes that led to the attempted Christmas bombing: it can overcome spelling errors in databases, alert the right people to a threat in real time, and correlate literally billions of records on an ongoing basis.
… some technologies rely on strategies that actually destroy the forensic integrity of the data. Not all identity resolution technologies are the same. Ours can be configured using a number of strategies to fit particular customer performance requirements, sensitivity to false positives or false negatives, and Similarity Search behaviors, including specialized name algorithms that catch misspellings, nicknames, and ordering variations.
The CBC article suggests how expanding the current uses of entity resolution software could bring added benefits:
If the agencies that held these disparate pieces of information were connected and running entity resolution software, red flags would be raised automatically, and those warnings quickly transmitted to the people who make decisions. The same level of intelligent technology and data analysis is important in business, where entity resolution originated.
That last statement supports our January post where we mentioned other uses for the technology:
Although the consequences are grimmer in homeland security situations, the challenges are the same for financial, healthcare, gaming, state and local government, and marketing applications.
The CBC article delineates how businesses benefit from entity resolution:
Knowing who your customers are, where they live, and what they are interested in gives your business a serious advantage - but for large organizations, that requires processing massive amounts of information. The potential for inaccuracies, duplication, and mistaken identity means that companies may be led into poor decisions by misrepresentative data. Entity resolution software was developed to mitigate these risks, and automatically format and clean up the available information.
CEO Mike Shultz has pointed out that our specific technology is “used more times every day for terrorist matching” than any other entity resolution software. Thankfully, the worlds of both business and government seem to be getting the message about the critical importance of this technology.
“The technology to connect the dots from disparate data sources already exists, and has done for quite some time. It’s called “entity resolution,” and corporations have been using it for years to compile and ensure accuracy in consumer data. Entity resolution can help avoid many of the mistakes that led to the attempted Christmas bombing: it can overcome spelling errors in databases, alert the right people to a threat in real time, and correlate literally billions of records on an ongoing basis.”
“So-called false positives, such as when Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts was barred from a flight in 2004 because his name matched an alias on a watch list, are eliminated under the new program, the agency has said. The computer system the government uses is more sophisticated than the one employed by airlines, and more detailed information is now collected from travelers, the security agency has said.”
“Today, everything seems to be moving into the cloud. In 2005, investment in cloud computing was about $26 million. But in 2009, the investment grew to $370 million, more than 10 times of what was invested in 2005.”
“Some of the nation’s largest banks are exiting or scaling back their dealings with foreign embassies and missions in the U.S. because of the burden of complying with money-laundering regulations… ‘It’s a commercial decision, but clearly it has ramifications for diplomatic relations,’ said Mark Toner, acting deputy spokesman for the State Department. ‘We want these foreign missions to be able to carry out their normal diplomatic functions here in the U.S.’”
“There are an estimated 50 million patient records, with 20 to 200 records per patient, resulting in billions of individual pieces of information, all of which need entity resolution: in other words, which records belong to her, him or somebody else.”
“In just the last fiscal year, we obtained settlements and judgments of more than $2.5 billion in False Claims Act matters alleging health care fraud. This marked a new record – and an increase of more than 60 percent from fiscal year 2009. We also opened more than 2,000 new criminal and civil health-care fraud investigations, reached an all-time high in the number of health-care fraud defendants charged, stopped numerous large-scale fraud schemes in their tracks, and returned more than $2.5 billion to the Medicare Trust Fund and more than $800 million to cash-strapped state Medicaid programs.”
“Gartner reports that due to the sluggish economy, customer demand for MDM software is growing at a significantly slower rate than years past. But it is growing. The analyst firm predicts that the overall market for MDM software will increase from $1 billion in 2008 to $2.9 billion by 2013. Gartner also predicts that by 2010, investments in MDM software will lead to an 80% reduction in costs associated with managing redundant data.”
“Some of the nation’s 72 fusion centers–where federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies share data on terrorism and crime threats–may face budget problems in the nation’s tough economic conditions. Ross Ashley of the National Fusion Center Association, which represents the centers, says that some newly elected governors must be convinced of the centers’ worth. The agencies typically do not have line-item budgets and are dependent on allocations from various levels of government to operate.”
Infoglide Software is a proud sponsor of the 15th International Conference on Information Quality (ICIQ). The 2010 edition of this annual event is being hosted this weekend by the George W. Dohaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Researchers from all over the world will convene to share the results of their efforts.
The organizer of the event is John Talburt, PhD, founder and director of the Center for Advanced Research in Entity Resolution and Information Quality (ERIQ). Infoglide has sponsored the ERIQ lab and the Information Quality graduate program in recent years.
If you’re attending, we’ll be there and look forward to meeting you in Little Rock.
“On November 1, the Secure Flight program achieved a key goal as described on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) web site: Secure Flight, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) behind-the-scenes watch list matching program, fulfills a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission by assuming responsibility of watch list matching from individual airlines. By establishing a consistent watch list matching system, Secure Flight enhances aviation security and more effectively facilitates air travel for passengers.”
“With a simple text message system you can bring the power of a supercomputer to the cheapest and simplest mobile phones via cloud computing. For many important applications there is no need to place supercomputing power in the device itself. Simple cell phones can act as smart phones today, thanks to the cloud. That’s an amazing technological advance.”
“The hospital, according to Field, allegedly paid a doctor $12,000 a month in Medicare money to serve as a medical director and to get patients admitted into a nonexistent program for women with post-traumatic stress disorder. Field also alleged the hospital billed Medicare for services to psychiatric patients without the doctor certification statements required by the government. ‘In essence it appeared that what the hospital was doing was obtaining reimbursement from the federal government for medically unnecessary psychiatric services,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Palombo said.”
“‘He has taken no responsibility for his conduct,” Kamiabipour said. ‘When he gets out, he’ll do it again.’ Petronella’s attorney, Tom Dunn, said the sentence was fair, though he would have liked to see his client get less time. Dunn also commended the judge for his “thoughtful and sound” decision on restitution. State officials and prosecutors say the couple operated a $38 million workers’ compensation insurance-fraud scheme.”
Infoglide Software provides entity resolution and analysis solutions for retail, banking, insurance, government, and law enforcement. Without the need for data cleansing or warehousing, Infoglide Software's Identity Resolution Engine™ (IRE) analyzes all of the information relating to individuals and/or entities from multiple sources of data and then applies...
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