12th May 2021 10:42 am
A team led by Imperial College London has developed an AI model to predict the trajectory of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs).
The approach uses machine learning to make predictions about how patients’ conditions might progress, and whether they’d respond positively to ‘proning’ a technique commonly used in ICUs for people with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Proning is the process of turning a patient onto their front to improve oxygenation in the lungs and has been used widely throughout the pandemic, but does not help all patients. When ineffective, it can delay the start of sequential treatments such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life-support machine that supports the heart and lungs in pumping blood around the body.