Machine Learning for Medical Data
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Machine Learning for Medical Data
This course is part of Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare Specialization
Instructors: Ramesh Sannareddy
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What you'll learn
Define supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques used for healthcare datasets.
Apply preprocessing, feature engineering, and class-imbalance management techniques to real healthcare datasets.
Design and implement supervised learning models for disease prediction and clinical decision support tasks.
Evaluate model performance using precision-recall metrics, calibration, and external validation.
Skills you'll gain
- Convolutional Neural Networks
- Model Training
- Healthcare Ethics
- Decision Intelligence
- Data Analysis
- Predictive Modeling
- Statistical Machine Learning
- Deep Learning
- Data Preprocessing
- Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs)
- Machine Learning
- Health Informatics
- Machine Learning Algorithms
- Model Evaluation
- AI Personalization
- Machine Learning Methods
Tools you'll learn
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- Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
- Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
- Earn a shareable career certificate
There are 4 modules in this course
This course builds on foundational AI concepts to teach machine learning (ML) techniques tailored for healthcare.
You will apply ML and deep learning techniques to develop predictive models for patient risk assessment. You will also translate healthcare data into actionable insights by experimenting with model design, training, and evaluation, strengthening both technical and clinical reasoning skills through practical, outcome-driven projects. Case studies and real-world examples will demonstrate how ML supports disease prediction, treatment optimization, and clinical decision support. The curriculum emphasizes data preprocessing, feature engineering, model selection, and evaluation using clinical metrics and validation strategies. Through hands-on exercises, you will apply supervised and unsupervised methods, design and train neural networks, and address practical challenges such as class imbalance, privacy, and interpretability. You will use Jupyter Notebook files in a Google Colab environment to complete labs. By the end of this course, you will be prepared to implement ML workflows that are clinically relevant, statistically sound, and ethically responsible.
This module focuses on applying supervised learning algorithms to healthcare datasets and clinical prediction tasks. Learners acquire the skills to select and implement appropriate supervised learning methods for disease risk prediction and treatment outcome modeling. Key areas include preprocessing clinical data, handling missing values, and engineering meaningful medical features to improve model accuracy and interpretability. The curriculum addresses class imbalance challenges common in healthcare through techniques like SMOTE, cost-sensitive learning, and appropriate evaluation metrics beyond accuracy. Through hands-on labs, students build practical models including diabetes risk predictors, clean real-world clinical datasets, and develop rare condition detectors using precision-recall evaluation methods for clinical applications.
What's included
8 videos4 readings4 assignments6 plugins
8 videosβ’Total 39 minutes
- Course Introduction β’3 minutes
- Specialization Overviewβ’5 minutes
- Supervised Learning Basics in Healthcareβ’6 minutes
- Case Study: Diabetes Risk Predictionβ’5 minutes
- Preprocessing Medical Data: Best Practicesβ’6 minutes
- Feature Engineering for Clinical Prediction Tasksβ’5 minutes
- Techniques to Handle Rare Disease Predictionβ’5 minutes
- Evaluating Models with Precision-Recall and ROCβ’6 minutes
4 readingsβ’Total 108 minutes
- Course Overviewβ’3 minutes
- Lab: Basic Supervised Model Implementation for Patient Risk Scoringβ’45 minutes
- Lab: Healthcare Data Preprocessing and Feature Engineeringβ’30 minutes
- Lab: Detecting Rare Medical Conditions with Machine Learningβ’30 minutes
4 assignmentsβ’Total 39 minutes
- Graded Quiz: Supervised Learning in Healthcareβ’21 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Introduction to Supervised Learning in Healthcareβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Feature Engineering and Data Preprocessingβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Handling Imbalanced Data in Clinical Modelsβ’6 minutes
6 pluginsβ’Total 31 minutes
- Reading: How to Make the Most of This Courseβ’2 minutes
- Reading: Supervised Learning Applications in Clinical AIβ’4 minutes
- Reading: Data Preparation Guidelines for Healthcare MLβ’4 minutes
- Reading: Strategies for Managing Imbalanced Clinical Datasetsβ’4 minutes
- Activity: Building Responsible AI for Rare Disease Predictionβ’15 minutes
- Reading: Module Summary: Supervised Learning in Healthcareβ’2 minutes
This module teaches unsupervised learning techniques for discovering hidden patterns in medical data without labeled outcomes. Students learn to apply clustering algorithms like K-means, hierarchical clustering, and DBSCAN for patient segmentation and personalized care strategies. The curriculum covers dimensionality reduction methods, including PCA, t-SNE, and UMAP, for simplifying high-dimensional healthcare datasets while preserving essential information. Key focus areas include interpreting unsupervised results for clinical relevance and translating abstract clusters into actionable treatment decisions. Through practical labs, students perform patient clustering analysis, visualize genomic data in reduced dimensions, and develop workflows for integrating unsupervised learning outcomes into electronic health record systems for real-world clinical applications.
What's included
4 videos2 readings4 assignments3 plugins
4 videosβ’Total 19 minutes
- Clustering Basics for Healthcare Dataβ’5 minutes
- PCA for Medical Dataβ’5 minutes
- From Clusters to Clinical Decisionsβ’5 minutes
- Integration of Unsupervised Results into EHR Systemsβ’5 minutes
2 readingsβ’Total 75 minutes
- Lab: K-means Clustering for Patient Segmentationβ’30 minutes
- Lab: Using Gradio to Deploy Machine Learning Modelsβ’45 minutes
4 assignmentsβ’Total 39 minutes
- Graded Quiz: Unsupervised Learning for Medical Dataβ’21 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Patient Segmentation through Clusteringβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Dimensionality Reduction Techniquesβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Making Clinical Sense of Unsupervised Resultsβ’6 minutes
3 pluginsβ’Total 10 minutes
- Reading: Cluster Analysis in Population Health Researchβ’4 minutes
- Reading: Dimensionality Reduction for Biomedical Datasetsβ’4 minutes
- Reading: Module Summary: Unsupervised Learning for Medical Dataβ’2 minutes
This module covers neural network applications for healthcare datasets, focusing on deep learning architectures tailored for medical contexts. Students learn to design and train neural networks for clinical prediction tasks, applying convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for medical imaging analysis and recurrent neural networks (RNNs) for sequential clinical data. The curriculum includes advanced CNN architectures like ResNet and DenseNet for radiology applications, plus LSTM networks for modeling patient timelines and predicting clinical deterioration. A key emphasis is placed on explainability methods, including saliency maps and Grad-CAM, to provide transparency in deep learning medical predictions. Through hands-on labs, students build disease detection systems, ICU risk prediction models, and implement interpretability techniques for clinical decision support.
What's included
6 videos3 readings4 assignments3 plugins
6 videosβ’Total 31 minutes
- Neural Network Architecture Primerβ’4 minutes
- Training Neural Networks for Clinical Predictionβ’5 minutes
- Convolutional Neural Networks for Radiologyβ’5 minutes
- Advanced CNN Architectures for Medical Tasksβ’6 minutes
- Recurrent Models for Sequential Clinical Dataβ’5 minutes
- Explainable AI Techniques for Medical Modelsβ’5 minutes
3 readingsβ’Total 80 minutes
- Lab: Building a Dense Neural Network for Heart Disease Predictionβ’30 minutes
- Lab: Training a Neural Network for Disease Detection in Chest X-rayβ’30 minutes
- Lab: Predicting Clinical Deterioration Using EHR Time Seriesβ’20 minutes
4 assignmentsβ’Total 39 minutes
- Graded Quiz: Neural Networks for Healthcare Applicationsβ’21 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Neural Network Basics for Medicineβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: CNNs for Medical Imagingβ’6 minutes
- Practice Quiz: Temporal Models and Explainability in Clinical Deep Learningβ’6 minutes
3 pluginsβ’Total 21 minutes
- Reading: Deep Learning in Medical Imagingβ’4 minutes
- Activity: Interpreting Model Explanations in Clinical Time-Series Predictionβ’15 minutes
- Reading: Module Summary: Neural Networks for Healthcare Applicationsβ’2 minutes
This capstone project consolidates the knowledge gained throughout the course and guides learners through a comprehensive, hands-on application of Machine Learning in healthcare. Learners will revisit key concepts while developing predictive models for disease detection using electronic health records and medical imaging data. Students engage in case-based problem-solving, implementing algorithms like neural networks while addressing healthcare-specific challenges, including data privacy, class imbalance, and model interpretability. Emphasis is placed on real-world clinical relevance, ethical AI practice, and professional readiness. Through validation testing, ethical analysis, and implementation recommendations, this capstone experience reinforces both conceptual mastery and practical competence in healthcare ML applications.
What's included
1 video2 readings1 assignment1 peer review1 discussion prompt2 plugins
1 videoβ’Total 4 minutes
- Course Wrap-upβ’4 minutes
2 readingsβ’Total 2 minutes
- Congratulations and Next Stepsβ’1 minute
- Team and Acknowledgmentsβ’1 minute
1 assignmentβ’Total 30 minutes
- Final Exam: Machine Learning for Medical Dataβ’30 minutes
1 peer reviewβ’Total 60 minutes
- Final Project: Predicting Maternal Health Risk Using AIβ’60 minutes
1 discussion promptβ’Total 2 minutes
- Comparing Your Workβ’2 minutes
2 pluginsβ’Total 13 minutes
- Reading: Final Project Overviewβ’3 minutes
- Reading: Course Glossaryβ’10 minutes
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Cleveland Clinic
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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Youβll gain hands-on experience building and evaluating machine-learning and deep-learning models for maternal health risk prediction. Through practical, step-by-step exercises, youβll apply data preprocessing, feature engineering, model training, and evaluation techniques using realistic healthcare datasets, developing the skills to design end-to-end AI solutions in clinical contexts.
No. Each lab provides starter code and clear instructions. While basic Python knowledge is helpful, the course is designed so that learners without deep programming backgrounds can still succeed.
Yes. The final project focuses on maternal health risk prediction, where you will design and implement a complete machine learning pipeline using real clinical data. Youβll prepare and clean a maternal health dataset, build supervised and neural network models to predict patient risk levels, evaluate them using clinical metrics, and deploy a simple Gradio-based web app that simulates a real clinical decision-support tool.
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ΒΉ Some assignments in this course are AI-graded. For these assignments, your data will be used in accordance with Coursera's Privacy Notice.
