- The health business group, with more than 20 years of experience in the management of innovative health projects, has developed a model based on Microsoft Azure Machine learning to predict clinical worsening, becoming a key element in effectively dealing with outbreaks of the pandemic .
- The Data Science team at futurs, a technology subsidiary of the healthcare group, has helped design the algorithms, which analyze and process variables for each patient based on objective data provided by the Microsoft cloud.
- Since 2017, Ribera Salud has been committed to artificial intelligence from Microsoft as a transformative tool for the health sector and is proving especially valuable in the context of the impact produced by COVID-19
Shore Health, a healthcare business group, together with its technology division developments, has launched a predictive model, based on Artificial Intelligence, which analyzes and processes variables of each patient to predict their evolution, based on objective data analyzed by Microsoft Azure and their tools Machine Learning.
This initiative began three years ago thanks to teamwork between Ribera Salud, futurs and Microsoft. The health group, beyond initiating a technological leap and modernizing the application, had the objective of improving the quality of care for patients, acting preventively thanks to predictions about the possible clinical worsening of patients as in the case of COVID.
When designing the project, Ribera Salud was very clear about it: they needed a tool that, through high-quality data, would enable variables of interest in the patient's medical history and proactively help prevent avoidable adverse situations. For this reason, they opted for Microsoft technology, which has facilitated the growth of the model, as well as its rapid development and easy implementation for clinical use by professionals.
Technology is something that is already available, but what has been key to the success of these projects has been the multidisciplinary approach, including healthcare professionals and technologists within the same team. In its genesis there have been initiatives with a very high degree of uncertainty, initially conceived as research projects, where Azure Machine Learning has offered us the necessary flexibility to be able to iterate the development of predictive models in a sector as complex and sensitive as healthcare. .
“We began to predict certain adverse effects using Machine Learning techniques and including this type of prediction within day-to-day operations and healthcare practice”, explains Mireia Ladios, corporate head of Quality at Ribera Salud. "We wanted the nurse who was seeing the patient and who could take the measurements at that moment, at the bedside, with a Tablet, to take advantage of that prediction and be able to act accordingly."
A benchmark model in change management in the healthcare sector
This revolutionary model has been built based on a selection of clinical variables, set by health professionals where the exhaustive control, collection and analysis of patient data are the basis for its creation, giving the clinician the opportunity to review and adjust the therapeutic plan before the patient deteriorates further.
This tool, supported by Artificial Intelligence and, more specifically, on machine learning, has allowed Ribera Salud to have greater control of the risks of patients without incurring a greater workload for health professionals. That is why this model facilitates what is known as the “Right Care, Right Now”, that is, providing the right care at the right time to achieve the optimal results for the patient.
“The result of the model is obtained automatically several times a day, it is inserted directly in a space agreed with the professionals themselves within the Clinical History. This makes professionals perceive it as a natural input and not as something external, and they use that information to be able to care for patients at the bedside. If that information had to be obtained and analyzed by traditional mechanisms, it would be very costly in time and resources." They point out from Ribera Salud.
In the last year, this model -supported by the Microsoft cloud and the tools of Azure Machine Learning- has contributed to reduce the number of patients who developed a PU (pressure ulcers) in the ICU, up to 19% (11% of cumulative incidence).
Key tool for the present and future of COVID-19
Thanks to these results, Ribera Salud has launched a new model to specifically predict the clinical worsening of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. This model was created with two very clear objectives: to provide the clinician with the opportunity to readjust the therapeutic plan in the event of a poor evolution; and support the manager in making decisions regarding the potential need for scarce resources. Its application could become a key element in effectively dealing with possible outbreaks in the future.
“Early detection of clinical worsening is a quality differentiating element, in a highly demanding environment such as the current Coronavirus pandemic”, says Mireia Ladios, Corporate Head of Quality at Ribera Salud. "The exhaustive control, collection and analysis of patient data is the basis for the creation of this predictive model, which allows alerts to be generated about the evolution of the patient, providing health personnel with the information they need to review and adjust the therapeutic plan before that the patient will get worse.”
Ribera Salud, supported by Artificial Intelligence technology, and as part of its commitment to society, will continue to develop and monitor new models that help research and transform the healthcare sector for the future.
Remember that you can also access the content of this information from the Microsoft News Center in Spain.
About Ribera Salud
Ribera Health is a health business group with more than 20 years of experience in the management of innovative health projects. With 5.800 workers and 750.000 patients around Spain, its vocation is to transform the way of working and innovate in health management to improve the health and well-being of the population, and add value to current and future society. In Spain it is present in four Autonomous Communities and manages six hospitals, three of them university, and more than 60 health centers in the Valencian Community, Madrid Community, Galicia and Extremadura. It has several international projects, as well as a b2b health purchasing center and the futurs technology division.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is driving digital transformation for the intelligent cloud era and the Intelligent Edge. Its mission is to help every person and every organization on the planet to do more in their day to day.
