Federated Learning in Healthcare: A Privacy-Preserving Approach to Predictive Analytics

Technology such as machine learning in healthcare has pushed privacy concerns to the point that the handling of sensitive patient data has become paramount. In the context of FL, predictive analytics without data sharing between institutions can be performed through the process. Next, we explore the application of FL in healthcare in order to maintain data privacy while obtaining robust predictive models. FL utilizes aggregated decentralized data from multiple healthcare providers to reduce the chance of data breaches and continue to be compliant with rigorous regulatory frameworks, like HIPAA and GDPR, while doing so. In this work, we evaluate the model performance of FL models in predicting different types of health outcomes in comparison with traditional centralized models. We show that FL can achieve similar predictive accuracy while maintaining data privacy, which makes the choice of FL as a viable alternative to privacy sensitive healthcare environments. Second, applying FL is very challenging: there are communication overhead, data heterogeneity, and security risks. This study also considers ways to minimize these challenges. The results demonstrate the promise of Federated Learning as an innovative paradigm for applying predictive analytics in healthcare, indicative of a robust shift toward more secure, efficient and privacy preserving healthcare systems.