Aimee Quirk: An Algorithm That Predicts Hospital Codes

The innovationOchsner team has introduced new uses of technology at Ochsner Health System hospitals through the digital medicine programs for patients with hypertension or who are pregnant. They’ve also developed an algorithm that uses patient data to predict deterioration and, therefore, prevent hospital codes for cardiac arrest or other emergencies.

Aimee Quirk, CEO of innovationOchsner at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans shared that during a 90-day pilot period, use of the algorithm reduced codes by 44%.

“It's a pretty impressive feat and that's just one example of how new tools like artificial intelligence can help us take huge data sets and help us translate it into action,” said Quirk.

What's one way innovationOchsner is using data to improve hospital care?

Our team developed an algorithm to predict patient deterioration in the hospital—so codes, cardiac arrest, etc, in the hospital. With that we were able to find out when a patient had a high likelihood of deterioration and send a notification to our rapid response team, who normally would go in response to a cardiac arrest to resuscitate the patient, but now they're given an early warning and can go early and try to diagnose and avoid the problem altogether and avoid the cardiac arrest.

We launched that here at Ochsner last year and the results were that over 90-day period it reduced codes by 44%. It's a pretty impressive feat and that's just one example of how new tools like artificial intelligence can help us take huge data sets and help us translate it into action that our physicians can be more proactive than they've ever been able to be. So, we're building on many other use cases using that type of technology so that we can be more proactive and preventative.