Amy Hodler

A lot of valuable data can be represented as graphs. Genealogical charts are a familiar example: they represent people as boxes, connected by lines that represent parent/child or marriage relationships. In mathematics and computer science, graphs have become a discipline all their own. Now their value for health care is emerging. Graph computing made a significant advance this past February in the form of a Graph Data Science (GDS) library for the free and open source Neo4j graph database. Graph databases are proving their value in clinical research and public health; I wonder whether they can also boost analytics for providers. This article explains what's special about graph databases, and some applications in health care highlighted by recent webinars offered by the Neo4j company.

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