'Data is the new oil of the 21st century,' says Dr Julian Elliott, Senior Research Fellow at the Australasian Cochrane Centre, 'but it's not the engines, factories or transport systems. Their digital equivalents are being built now and how we – individuals, corporations, governments and societies – build these systems, products and services will have far-reaching consequences, in health as in other sectors.' 

This month, Julian explores the opportunities and challenges that big data present to clinicians, researchers and consumers in two wide-ranging articles in the international journal Nature and online news site The Conversation.

The full articles are available online:

> Make sense of health data, Nature - Julian Elliott, Jeremy Grimshaw, Lisa Bero and  colleagues  argue that the core elements of evidence synthesis must be combined with other data sciences to develop new ways to make sense of diverse data. 

>  Big data can improve health but first we need to build the foundations, The Conversation - The availability of  health data is just the starting point - we need to make sense of the data.