Abstract
The amount of health care data in our world has been exploding, and the ability to store, aggregate, and combine data and then use the results to perform deep analyses have become ever more important. "Big data," large pools of data that can be captured, communicated, aggregated, stored, and analyzed, are now part of every sector and function of the global economy. While most research into big data thus far has focused on the question of their volume, there is evidence that the business and economic possibilities of big data and their wider implications are important for consideration. It is even offering the possibility that health care data could become the most valuable asset over the next 5 years as "secondary use" of electronic health record data takes off.