Innovative AI Technology Assists Physicians in Identifying Suicide Risk Among Patients
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New Delhi, Jan 4 (NationPress) A group of researchers from the US has successfully developed an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) system that aids physicians in identifying patients at risk for suicide.
The researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center stated that AI-based clinical alerts could significantly enhance prevention strategies in standard medical environments.
The AI system, known as the Vanderbilt Suicide Attempt and Ideation Likelihood model (VSAIL), was tested across three neurology clinics at VUMC. They evaluated 7,732 patient visits over a six-month period to assess suicide risk during routine consultations.
The results, published in JAMA Network Open, indicated that the AI model could effectively generate prompts for doctors -- with a total of 596 screening alerts -- by analyzing standard data from electronic health records and assessing a patient's risk of a suicide attempt within 30 days.
Moreover, the researchers compared two methods: automatic pop-up alerts that disrupted the doctor's workflow versus a more passive approach that merely displayed risk information within the patient's electronic chart.
The findings revealed that the interruptive alerts were significantly more successful, prompting doctors to carry out suicide risk assessments for 42 percent of the screening alerts, in contrast to just 4 percent for the passive system.
Although the researchers acknowledged that universal screening may not be feasible in every healthcare setting, the new VSAIL can aid in pinpointing high-risk patients and initiating targeted screening discussions.
The team also noted that while the interruptive alerts proved to be more effective in prompting screenings, they could lead to alert fatigue among healthcare providers.
According to the researchers, frequent automated notifications could overwhelm doctors, and they recommended further studies to investigate this issue.
