Big Data Horizons- DataBricks, Diagnosing Mental Illness

Big data analytics platform Databricks raises $140M Series D round

“Led by Anderseen Horowitz”

Databricks, a big data analytics platform built by a team that grew out of the Apache Spark project, today announced that it has raised a $140 million Series D round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from New Enterprise Associates and Battery Ventures. This brings Databricks’ total funding raised to date to $247 million, which includes a $60 million round the company announced only last December.

The funding to invest in its product aims to bring data science to more users inside basically any business and to accelerate its growth strategies with their analytics. This includes a focus on core industries like healthcare, financial services, government and media entertainment. The company also plans to grow its engineering and customer success teams.

DataBricks commented further on the funding, stating: “AI has enormous promise but also a 1% problem,” Ali Ghodsi noted in today’s announcement.”Less than 10 companies in the world are achieving the full potential of AI and the rest are really struggling. Databricks’ mission is to simplify AI and bring it to the other 99% of enterprise organizations. This funding will enable us to expand our offering and bring it to many more markets, enabling more businesses to reap the benefits of Big Data and AI.”

Quartet, Sutter Health use big data to get patients the mental healthcare they need

“Tapping into big data to identify people within a with undiagnosed mental health conditions.”

“This very archaic way of viewing separation between physical and mental health, the body and the mind, serves no one well,” John Boyd, the system executive for mental health at Sutter, recently told MobiHealthNews. He elaborates: “…The average person, it can take them anywhere up to and beyond 7, 8 years before they realize they have a mental health challenge, before they seek help.”

Quartet normally uses claims data for its analyses. But working with a health system allows them to wrap EHR data into the mix too, a prospect Chief Data Scientist Dr. David Wennberg is excited to tackle.

“The business proposition is there’s a quality value proposition because if patrons have anxiety and depression they tend to be poor at navigating the healthcare system, so they can end up in the ER or the hospital because they don’t understand all parts of their care,” Wennberg, Quartet’s chief data scientist, told MobiHealthNews. “The goal here is short-term goal-directed therapy for people where they can work with behavioral health providers with an orientation toward functional status.”

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