A multi-hospital initiative sparked by the COVID-19 crisis has shown that, by working together, institutions in any industry can develop predictive AI models that set a new standard for both accuracy and generalizability.
Published today in Nature Medicine, a leading peer-reviewed healthcare journal, the collaboration demonstrates how privacy-preserving federated learning techniques can enable the creation of robust AI models that work well across organizations, even in industries constrained by confidential or sparse data.
Usually in AI development, when you create an algorithm on one hospital's data, it doesn't work well at any other hospital, said Dr. Ittai Dayan, first author on the study, who led AI development at Mass General Brigham and this year founded healthcare startup Rhino Health.
But by developing our model using federated learning and objective, multimodal data from different continents, we were able to build a generalizable model that can help frontline physicians worldwide, he said.
Other large-scale federated learning projects are already underway in the healthcare industry, including a five-member study for mammogram assessment and pharmaceutical giant Bayer's work training an AI model for spleen segmentation.
Beyond healthcare, federated learning can help energy companies analyze seismic and wellbore data, financial firms improve fraud detection models, and autonomous vehicle researchers develop AI that generalizes to different countries' driving behaviors.
Federated Learning: AI Takes a Village Companies and research institutions developing AI models are typically limited by the data available to them. This can mean that smaller organizations or niche research areas lack enough data to train an accurate predictive model. Even large datasets can be biased by an organization's patient or customer demographics, specific data-recording methods or even the brand of scientific equipment used.
To gather enough training data for a robust, generalizable model, most organizations would need to pool data with their peers. But in many cases, data privacy regulations limit the ability to directly share data - like patient medical records or proprietary datasets - on a common supercomputer or cloud server.
That's where federated learning comes in.
Dubbed EXAM (for EMR CXR AI Model), the new study in Nature Medicine - led by Mass General Brigham and NVIDIA - brought 20 hospitals across five continents together to train a neural network that predicts the level of supplemental oxygen a patient with COVID-19 symptoms may need 24 and 72 hours after arriving to point-of-care settings like the emergency department. It's among the largest, most diverse clinical federated learning studies to date.
Many Hands Make AI Work Federated learning enabled the EXAM collaborators to create an AI model that learned from every participating hospital's chest X-ray images, patient vitals, demographic data and lab values - without ever seeing the private data housed in each location's private server.
Every hospital trained a copy of the same neural network on local NVIDIA GPUs. During training, each hospital periodically sent only updated model weights to a centralized server, where a global version of the neural network aggregated them to form a new global model.
It's like sharing the answer key to an exam without revealing any of the study material used to come up with the answers.
The results of the EXAM initiative show it's possible to train high performing and generalizable AI models in healthcare without private identifiable data exchanging hands, thus upholding data privacy, said Dr. Brad Wood, coauthor and director of the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology and Chief of Interventional Radiology at the NIH Clinical Center.
The findings are impactful well beyond this cross-hospital model for COVID-19 predictions, and showcase federated learning as a promising solution for the field in general, he continued. This provides the framework toward more effective and compliant big data sharing, which may be required to realize the potential of AI deep learning in medicine.
The global EXAM model, shared with all participating sites, resulted in a 16 percent improvement of the AI model's average performance. Researchers saw an average increase of 38 percent in generalizability when compared to models trained at any single site.
Each participating hospital saw improved performance with the global federated learning model (green), compared to the model trained only on local data (blue). Figure originally published in Nature Medicine. The performance boost was especially dramatic for hospitals with smaller datasets, visible in the chart above.
Federated learning allows researchers all over the world to collaborate on a common objective: to develop a model that learns from and generalizes to everyone's data, said Sira Sriswasdi, co-director of the Center for AI in Medicine at Chulalongkorn University and King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Thailand, one of the 20 hospitals that collaborated on EXAM. With NVIDIA GPUs and the NVIDIA Clara software, participating in the study was an easy process that yielded impactful results.
Hospitals, Startups Pursue Further EXAMination Bringing together collaborators across North and South America, Europe and Asia, the original EXAM study took just two weeks of training to achieve high-quality prediction of patient oxygen needs, an insight that can help physicians determine the level of care a patient requires.
Since then, its collaborators validated that the AI model may generalize and perform well in settings independent from sites that helped build and train the model. Three additional hospitals in Massachusetts - Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Martha's Vineyard Hospital and Nantucket
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
08/05/2026
For the second straight year, Miri Technologies Inc. has been honored with a pair of coveted awards at the broadcast, media and entertainment industry's pre...
08/05/2026
Nine Alumni Nominated for Tony Awards More than 20 alumni contributed to this year's Tony-nominated productions.
May 7, 2026
By
Tori Donahue
Boston Co...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Liberty University on why broadcast technology isn't just a technical invest...
08/05/2026
COW Jobs: UGC, On-Camera Video Content
Brie Clayton May 7, 2026
0 Comments
UGC, On-Camera Video Content
April 17, 2026Documentary Editor - US,......
07/05/2026
Journalists reporting on Sudan are working in one of the most complex and fast-m...
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Seit dem Start im Jahr 2023 hat DJ (Beta) das personalisierte H rerlebnis von 94...
07/05/2026
Da quando stata presentata nel 2023, DJ (beta) ha aiutato a definire un'esperienza d'ascolto pi personalizzata per 94 milioni di utenti Spotify Premi...
07/05/2026
Since launching in 2023, DJ (beta) has helped shape a more personalized listenin...
07/05/2026
Desde o lan amento em 2023, o DJ (beta) j ajudou a deixar a experi ncia de ouvi...
07/05/2026
From our earliest days, Spotify has been built on a simple principle: Great audio should be easy to reach. It's what's driven us to expand from music to...
07/05/2026
Asian and Pacific Islander artists continue to shape the global soundscape, pushing creative boundaries and connecting with fans worldwide. This Asian & Pacific...
07/05/2026
Company announce long-requested choir instrument
In the latest expansion of their Symphonic Elements series, UJAM have introduced an all-new vocal instrumen...
07/05/2026
Modular-inspired sound generation with digital control
Buchla have introduced Ziggy, a new compact synthesizer built around the company's complex oscill...
07/05/2026
Combines analogue voices with digital synthesis and sequencing
Polyend have announced Drums, a new hybrid analogue and digital drum machine that combines sy...
07/05/2026
Control surface now officially supports four DAWs
When Nektar launched the Panorama CS12 control surface, it worked exclusively with Apple's Logic Pro, ...
07/05/2026
In the first quarter 2026, SGL Carbon generated consolidated sales of 184.5 million, which was 49.8 million, or 21.3%, lower than in the prior year (Q1 2025: ...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
A multi-hospital initiative sparked by the COVID-19 crisis has shown that, by working together, institutions in any industry can develop predictive AI models that set a new standard for both accuracy and generalizability.
