Predictive Analytics a Silver Bullet for a Pandemic – A Systematic Literature Review

Predictive analytics entails using historical data combined with statistical modelling, data mining and machine learning to determine the future outcome. Modern organisations are inundated with large volumes of data, which they need to learn and understand to make speedy, agile, informed and appropriate decisions to solve today’s complex business problems. A sector that has not fully adopted using predictive analytics is healthcare, which was revealed by how many federal governments and healthcare providers responded to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Applying predictive analytics enables healthcare organisations and federal governments to solve and manage complex situations such as COVID-19 spontaneously and find elegant solutions that could be reused should a similar pandemic recur. This study was conducted to determine the benefits and matrices of predictive analytics essential for combatting a pandemic. The study demonstrates and asserts that predictive analytics is vital when dealing with a pandemic. Predictive analytics provide agility and performance capabilities, which strengthen strategies to improve solutions multi-fold. The study employed a systematic literature review.