Articles

Artificial intelligence systems have been previously used to predict post-operative complications in small studies and single institutions. Here we developed a robust artificial intelligence model that predicts the risk of having cardiac, pulmonary, thromboembolic, or septic complications after elective, non-cardiac, non-ambulatory surgery. We combined structured and unstructured electronic health record data from 3.5 million surgical encounters from 25 medical centers between 2009 and 2017. Our neural network model predicted postoperative comorbidities 15 to 80 times faster than classical models. As such, our model can be used to assess the risk of having a specific complication postoperatively in a fraction of a second. With our model, we believe clinicians will be able to identify high-risk surgical patients and use their good judgment to mitigate upcoming risks, ultimately improving patient outcomes [1].