The use of such technology is expected to reduce over-prescription of antibiotics as part of efforts to fight the growing problem of drug-resistant bugs.
Some patients stricken with pneumonia may soon be prescribed antibiotics with the help of artificial intelligence.
The information these patients provide on their symptoms will be fed into a system, which will use AI to deduce whether the patient is suffering from a viral or bacterial form of the illness.
The system will then decide whether antibiotics – which are used only in cases of bacterial infection – are needed. It will also recommend the specific antibiotic needed, as well as the dose based on the patient’s clinical data.
Singapore General Hospital (SGH) developed the AI solution with IT firm DXC Technology and national health tech agency Synapxe.
Pneumonia – a serious inflammatory condition of the lungs – is a leading cause of death worldwide and the fourth biggest cause of hospitalisation at local hospitals.
The research team chose to focus first on pneumonia as it can become very severe very fast, said team member Piotr Chlebicki, a senior consultant in SGH’s Department of Infectious Diseases.
The power of the new tech-driven method lies in its ability to comb through vast amounts of information to detect patterns suggestive of infection, said Dr Chlebicki.
“That will tell us that this patient may be at risk of developing infection and this patient may need antibiotics,” he added.
Data from about 8,000 patients seen by SGH between 2019 and 2020 was used to build the AI pneumonia model for a pilot study.
This data included X-rays, clinical symptoms, periodic vital signs, and trends of common body responses to infection.
The information was then validated against another 2,000 cases in 2023.
The pilot study found that the system, called Augmented Intelligence in Infectious Diseases (AI2D), accurately determined if antibiotics were necessary upon a patient’s first diagnosis in nine out of 10 cases, SGH said.
The use of such technology is expected to reduce over-prescription of antibiotics as part of efforts to fight the growing problem of drug-resistant bugs.
