Profile: Ari Caroline, the Big-Data Guru Who Helps Cancer Patients

Over time, Caroline's focus has morphed from tweaking staffing schedules and other operational details to influencing clinical decisions. His group is developing a portal that uses machine learning and natural-language processing to push information to physicians and researchers about which patients may qualify for one of the hundreds of clinical trials under way at the hospital at any given time. Of course, plenty of companies are eager to mine health care data, from startups to IBM. But Caroline's team has unfettered access to raw data and expertise that outsiders must beg to receive. When engineers in his group are stumped on how to write an algorithm that properly classifies triple-negative breast cancers, they catch a shuttle to the hospital's main campus and consult with physicians.