LO32: Artificial intelligence to predict disposition to improve flow in the emergency department

Abstract

Introduction: Emergency department (ED) crowding is a major problem across Canada. We studied the ability of artificial intelligence methods to improve patient flow through the ED by predicting patient disposition using information available at triage and shortly after patients’ arrival in the ED. Methods: This retrospective study included all visits to an urban, academic, adult ED between May 2012 and June 2019. For each visit, 489 variables were extracted including triage data that had been collected for use in the Canadian Triage Assessment Scale (CTAS) and information regarding laboratory tests, radiological tests, consultations and admissions. A training set consisting of all visits from April 2012 up to December 2018 was used to train 5 classes of machine learning models to predict admission to the hospital from the ED. The models were trained to predict admission at the time of the patient's arrival in the ED and every 30 minutes after arrival until 6 hours into their ED stay. The performance of models was compared using the area under the ROC curve (AUC) on a test set consisting of all visits from January 2019 to June 2019. Results: The study included 536,332 visits and the admission rate was 15.0%. Gradient boosting models generally outperformed other machine learning models. A gradient boosting model using all available data at 2 hours after patient arrival in the ED yielded a test set AUC 0.92 [95% CI 0.91-0.93], while a model using only data available at triage yielded an AUC 0.90 [95% CI 0.89-0.91]. The quality of predictions generally improved as predictions were made later in the patient's ED stay leading to an AUC 0.95 [95% CI 0.93-0.96] at 6 hours after arrival. A gradient boosting model with 20 variables available at 2 hours after patient arrival in the ED yielded an AUC 0.91 [95% CI 0.89-0.93]. A gradient boosting model that makes predictions at 2 hours after arrival in ED using only variables that are available at all EDs in the province of Quebec yielded an AUC 0.91 [95% 0.89-0.92]. Conclusion: Machine learning can predict admission to a hospital from the ED using variables that area collected as part of routine ED care. Machine learning tools may potentially be used to help ED physicians to make faster and more appropriate disposition decisions, to decrease unnecessary testing and alleviate ED crowding.