Predictability of COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Intensive Care Unit Admissions, and Respiratory Assistance in Portugal: Longitudinal Cohort Study

Background In the face of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the timely prediction of upcoming medical needs for infected individuals enables better and quicker care provision when necessary and management decisions within health care systems. Objective This work aims to predict the medical needs (hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and respiratory assistance) and survivability of individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection in Portugal. Methods A retrospective cohort of 38,545 infected individuals during 2020 was used. Predictions of medical needs were performed using state-of-the-art machine learning approaches at various stages of a patient’s cycle, namely, at testing (prehospitalization), at posthospitalization, and during postintensive care. A thorough optimization of state-of-the-art predictors was undertaken to assess the ability to anticipate medical needs and infection outcomes using demographic and comorbidity variables, as well as dates associated with symptom onset, testing, and hospitalization. Results For the target cohort, 75% of hospitalization needs could be identified at the time of testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Over 60% of respiratory needs could be identified at the time of hospitalization. Both predictions had >50% precision. Conclusions The conducted study pinpoints the relevance of the proposed predictive models as good candidates to support medical decisions in the Portuguese population, including both monitoring and in-hospital care decisions. A clinical decision support system is further provided to this end.