Clinical trial of estimated risk stratification prediction tool

Abstract

This work presents doctors with a model of the estimated degree of risk of rare and important neonatal outcomes to aid in better decisions and improved allocation of equipment and resources. An extensive list of admission day parameters is reduced to minimum variable sets to create models for outcomes that are relevant to decision-making in the neonatal intensive care unit. Models are applied to a special collection of cases and compared to neonatologists' risk estimates. A comparative analysis of physician's predictions and the models' discrimination abilities highlights areas of success and areas that can be improved for future trials. Doctors responded positively to the prediction interface concept and to the estimated risk stratification models. Physicians' strengths identified outcomes that could benefit from increased sensitivity. A substantial effort was made to conduct the usability and performance evaluations within the ethical standards that are especially important for engineering healthcare management applications.