Researchers as well as data and computer scientists at Montefiore Health System are assembling an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) tool to help doctors identify and treat a lethal form of lung failure that’s been under-recognized until now. Known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the disease affects about 200,000 people in the U.S. alone, but it’s currently missed by doctors 40% of the time.
The ARDS team is using an existing Montefiore Einstein AI platform, leveraging years of de-identified patient data to aggregate objective, critical data points for ARDS. Funded thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the tool develops a profile and then flags patients who match it, all while running in the background of an electronic medical record system.
“ARDS is under-recognized because these patients are often extremely ill and have other life-threatening conditions, such as shock, pneumonia, or trauma. Since diagnosis depends on the patient meeting a number of criteria, it is easy for one of the criteria to be attributed to another acute condition, rather than to ARDS,” said Dr. Michelle Ng Gong, chief of Research, Critical Care at Montefiore Health System and a professor of medicine and of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The tool is an extension of existing work done by Montefiore Einstein’s Critical Care and health data teams. This work is already improving the outcomes of patients suffering from severe acute respiratory failure through AI, giving the ARDS-specific AI a solid foundation to expand upon.
