AI to predict Covid patients at dire need for ventilators

New York:  US researchers have developed an online tool using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help medical staff quickly determine which Covid-19 patients will need help breathing with a ventilator.
The team at Case Western Reserve University developed the tool, through analysis of CT scans from nearly 900 Covid-19 patients diagnosed in 2020, and is able to predict ventilator need with 84 per cent accuracy.
“That could be important for physicians as they plan how to care for a patient and, of course, for the patient and their family to know,” said Anant Madabhushi, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve.  “It could also be important for hospitals as they determine how many ventilators they’ll need,” he added.
Among the more common symptoms of severe Covid-19 cases is the need for patients to be placed on ventilators to ensure they will be able to continue to take in enough oxygen as they breathe.
Yet, almost from the start of the pandemic, the number of ventilators needed to support such patients far outpaced available supplies, to the point that hospitals began “splitting” ventilators, a practice in which a ventilator assists more than one patient.