Time Series Forecasting in Healthcare: A Comparative Study of Statistical Models and Neural Networks

Time series forecasting is essential for generating predictive insights across various domains, including healthcare, finance, and energy. This study focuses on forecasting patient health data by comparing the performance of traditional linear time series models, namely Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Seasonal ARIMA, and Moving Average (MA) against neural network architectures. The primary goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of these models in predicting healthcare outcomes using patient records, specifically the Cancerpatient.xlsx dataset, which tracks variables such as patient age, symptoms, genetic risk factors, and environmental exposures over time. The proposed strategy involves training each model on historical patient data to predict age progression and other related health indicators, with performance evaluated using Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) metrics. Our findings reveal that neural networks consistently outperform ARIMA and SARIMA by capturing non-linear patterns and complex temporal dependencies within the dataset, resulting in lower forecasting errors. This research highlights the potential of neural networks to enhance predictive accuracy in healthcare applications, supporting better resource allocation, patient monitoring, and long-term health outcome predictions.