An HMO developing a platform for the discovery of clinical insights from medial information, Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services, plans to deploy an AI system that can identify people at risk of developing COVID-19 complications. The work is being done in partnership with the Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi Research and Innovation Institute and Medial EarlySign and looks at factors like preexisting conditions, the three organizations announced today. The AI could enable the HMO to fast-track patients for testing at a time when COVID-19 test kits are tough to come by. As of early this month — citing a growing shortage of reagents — the Israel Health Ministry said it wouldn’t test people for COVID-19 symptoms unless they had recently traveled.

According to Medial EarlySign CEO Dr. Jeremy Orr, the COVID-19 risk detection system shares elements with the company’s existing flu complications model, whose design was informed by an analysis of tens of millions of people treated by Maccabi and billions of lab results, structured electronic health record data, vital signs, demographics, and other data points. Following a pilot analysis of Maccabi patients’ anonymized records, it identified the top 2% of highest-risk patients (approximately 40,000 people), taking into account variables

Source: venturebeat.com