Many Ohio residents receive their initial diagnosis of heart failure when they visit the emergency room. For many people, the disease is terminal. Of the 23 million people with heart failure around the world, half die within five years of being diagnosed with the condition.
Heart failure may be diagnosed earlier with help from artificial intelligence. Using ‘deep learning” to analyze electronic health records, the AI program can diagnose heart failure in patients long before doctors can. Deep learning is a computer program that is able to solve the most complex technical problems such as speech and face recognition.
Researchers from Sutter Health and the Georgia Institute of Technology have been developing the new method for diagnosing heart failure with AI. The researchers tested the AI diagnosis by allowing the deep learning system to analyze over 265,000 patients’ electronic health records. With deep learning, researchers did not have to input extensive information, because the computer already knew how to define the factors that it was supposed to evaluate. One researcher said that he was excited that patients could now receive earlier diagnoses and have better outcomes.
A patient with heart failure who is misdiagnosed with a different condition might be harmed by the lack of treatment. When this happens, medical bills can ramp up as well. Those who are in this position may want to obtain the advice of an attorney to see if the misdiagnosis constituted compensable medical professional negligence that merits the filing of a lawsuit against the health care practitioner or facility.