Predicting Medical Conditions Using k-Nearest Neighbors

As the healthcare industry becomes more reliant upon electronic records, the amount of medical data available for analysis increases exponentially. While this information contains valuable statistics, the sheer volume makes it difficult to analyze without efficient algorithms. By using machine learning to classify medical data, diagnoses can become more efficient, accurate, and accessible for the general public. After choosing kNearest Neighbors for its simplicity, we applied it to datasets compiled by the University of California, Irvine Machine Learning Repository to diagnose two conditions -chronic kidney failure and heart disease -with an accuracy of approximately 90%. In the future, similar methods can be used on a larger scale to bring ease of use to the field of medical diagnostics.