healthcare

This article is the first in a three-part series that will discuss how machine learning impacts healthcare. The first article will be an overview defining machine learning and explaining how it fits into the larger fields of data science and artificial intelligence. The second article will discuss machine learning tools available to the average healthcare worker. The third article will use a common open source machine learning software application to analyze a healthcare spreadsheet. Part I was written to help healthcare workers understand the fundamentals of machine learning and to make them aware that there are simple and affordable programs available that do not require programming skills or mathematics background...

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Every inpatient and outpatient EHR could theoretically be integrated with a machine learning platform to generate predictions, in order to alert clinicians about important events such as sepsis, pulmonary emboli, etc. This approach may become essential when genetic information is also included in the EHR which would mandate more advanced computation. However, using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in every EHR will be a significant undertaking because not only do subject matter experts and data scientists need to create and validate the models, they must be re-tested over time and tested in a variety of patient populations. Models could change over time and might not work well in every healthcare system. Moreover, the predictive performance must be clinically, and not just statistically significant, otherwise, they will be another source of “alert fatigue.”

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