The big data has penetrated into healthcare. But merely collecting the patient records and keeping them in the form of electronic health records (EHR) is not enough. It starts with using programming software languages like R to sort through the huge database. R is an open source programing software used for statistical computation and data mining. In this case, R can be used to interpret the EHR for different purposes like side effects associate with a particular drug among a typical set of patients with similar records and could also help identify what causes the side effect. R can be customized according to the needs of the patient and the physician and thus can be helpful in providing personalized healthcare .Also, since R is open source software, it involves no cost and a large amount of documentation is available to learn the language. Read more at:http://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/radical-potential-open-source-programming-healthcare