Open AccessPrediction of Critical Care Outcome for Adult Patients Presenting to Emergency Department Using Initial Triage Information: An XGBoost Algorithm Analysis
Author(s) -
Hyoungju Yun,
Jinwook Choi,
Jeong Ho Park
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
jmir medical informatics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2291-9694
DOI - 10.2196/30770
Subject(s) - triage , emergency department , receiver operating characteristic , medicine , machine learning , logistic regression , respiratory rate , artificial intelligence , vital signs , discriminative model , blood pressure , algorithm , emergency medicine , computer science , heart rate , surgery , psychiatry
Background The emergency department (ED) triage system to classify and prioritize patients from high risk to less urgent continues to be a challenge. Objective This study, comprising 80,433 patients, aims to develop a machine learning algorithm prediction model of critical care outcomes for adult patients using information collected during ED triage and compare the performance with that of the baseline model using the Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS). Methods To predict the need for critical care, we used 13 predictors from triage information: age, gender, mode of ED arrival, the time interval between onset and ED arrival, reason of ED visit, chief complaints, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation, and level of consciousness. The baseline model with KTAS was developed using logistic regression, and the machine learning model with 13 variables was generated using extreme gradient boosting (XGB) and deep neural network (DNN) algorithms. The discrimination was measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve. The ability of calibration with Hosmer–Lemeshow test and reclassification with net reclassification index were evaluated. The calibration plot and partial dependence plot were used in the analysis. Results The AUROC of the model with the full set of variables (0.833-0.861) was better than that of the baseline model (0.796). The XGB model of AUROC 0.861 (95% CI 0.848-0.874) showed a higher discriminative performance than the DNN model of 0.833 (95% CI 0.819-0.848). The XGB and DNN models proved better reclassification than the baseline model with a positive net reclassification index. The XGB models were well-calibrated (Hosmer-Lemeshow test; P>.05); however, the DNN showed poor calibration power (Hosmer-Lemeshow test; P<.001). We further interpreted the nonlinear association between variables and critical care prediction. Conclusions Our study demonstrated that the performance of the XGB model using initial information at ED triage for predicting patients in need of critical care outperformed the conventional model with KTAS.