AI system used to predict decline in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Editor's Note:

Epic’s deterioration index, an artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning-based system that can predict which patients with COVID-19 could become seriously ill, has been put into use at hospitals nationwide, the April 24 STAT reports.

Though normally hospitals would take weeks or months to test a new tool on hundreds of patients and refine the algorithm, the COVID-19 pandemic is not allowing for that. Clinicians are working with the numbers they have and erring on the side of patient care.

In the case of patients likely to decline, researchers have found that the system can give them up to 40 hours of warning before a life-threatening event occurs.

Epic executives say the AI tool, which has been rolled out over the past 2 years to predict deterioration of hospitalized patients facing a wide array of illnesses, is now being used to support care of COVID-19 patients in dozens of hospitals.