Machine Learning–Based Early Warning Systems for Clinical Deterioration: Systematic Scoping Review

Introduction

Patient deterioration and adverse outcomes are often preceded by abnormal vital signs [1-3]. These warning signs frequently appear a few hours to a few days before the event, which can provide sufficient time for intervention. In response, clinical decision support early warning systems (EWS) have been developed that employ periodic observations of vital signs along with a predetermined criteria or cut-off range for alerting clinicians of patient deterioration [4].

EWS typically employ heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), blood pressure (BP), peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO₂), temperature, and sometimes the level of consciousness [5]. Aggregate-weighted EWS incorporate several vital signs and other patient characteristics with clearly defined thresholds. Weights are assigned to each of these vital signs and characteristics based on a threshold, and an overall risk score is calculated by adding each of the weighted scores [6].

Some of the commonly used aggregate-weighted EWS for predicting cardiorespiratory insufficiency and mortality are the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) [7], National Early Warning Score (NEWS) [8], and Hamilton Early Warning Score [9], which all incorporate vital signs and the level of consciousness (Alert, Verbal, Pain, Unresponsive [AVPU]) but have varying thresholds for assigning scores.

The predictive ability of aggregate-weighted EWS has limitations. First, the scores indicate the present risk of the patient but do not incorporate trends nor provide information about the possible risk trajectory [6]; thus, the scores do not communicate whether the patient is improving or deteriorating and the rate of this change [10]. Second, these scores do not capture any correlations between the parameters, as the score for each parameter is calculated independently through simple addition [6] (eg, HR or RR can be interpreted differently when body temperature is taken into consideration).

A newer approach to EWS relies on machine learning (ML). ML models learn patterns and relationships directly from data rather than relying on a rule-based system [11]. Unlike aggregate-weighted EWS, ML models are computationally intensive, but can incorporate trends in risk scores, adjust for varying numbers of clinical covariates, and be optimized for different care settings and populations [12]. Like other EWS, ML models can be integrated into electronic health records to analyze vital sign measurements continuously and provide predictions of patient outcomes as part of a clinical decision support system [13].

Two systematic reviews in 2019 [14,15] evaluated the ability of ML models to predict clinical deterioration in adult patients using vital signs. The review by Brekke et al [15] examined the utility of trends within intermittent vital sign measurements from adult patients admitted to all hospital wards and emergency departments (ED) but identified only 2 retrospective studies that met their inclusion criteria. The review identified that vital sign trends were of value in detecting clinical deterioration but concluded that there is a lack of research in intermittently monitored vital sign trends and highlighted the need for controlled trials.

The review conducted by Linnen et al [14] compared the accuracy and workload of ML-based EWS with that of aggregate-weighted EWS. This review focused on studies that reported adult patient transfers to intensive care units (ICUs) or mortality as the outcome(s) and excluded all other clinical settings; 6 studies were identified that reported the performance metrics for both the ML-based EWS and aggregate-weighted EWS. The review identified that ML modelling consistently performed better than aggregate-weighted models while generating clinical workload. They also highlighted the need for standardized performance metrics and deterioration outcome definitions.

These are important findings, but to date no review has systematically reviewed the evidence from studies using ML-based EWS using vital sign measurements of varying frequencies, across different care settings and clinical outcomes in order to identify common methodological trends and limitations with current approaches to generate recommendations for future research in this area.

The objective of this study was to scope the state of research in ML-based EWS using vital signs data for predicting the risk of physiological deterioration in patients across acute and ambulatory care settings and to identify directions for future research in this area.

Methods

A systematic scoping review was conducted by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) framework [16]. This process provides an analysis of the available research, current state of utility of ML-based EWS, challenges facing their clinical implementation, and how they compare to aggregate-weighted EWS by identifying, synthesizing, and appraising the relevant evidence in the area. The literature search, assessment of eligibility of full-text articles, inclusion in the review, and extraction of study data were carried out by a single author.

Search Strategy

We searched PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed studies without using any filters for study design and language. Searches were also conducted without any date restrictions. The reference lists of all studies that met the inclusion criteria were screened for additional articles. The search strategy involved a series of searches using a combination of relevant keywords and synonyms, including “vital signs,” “clinical deterioration,” and “machine learning.” See Multimedia Appendix 1 for search terms.

Eligibility Criteria

The inclusion criteria covered the following:

• Peer-reviewed studies evaluating continuous or intermittent vital sign monitoring in adult patients so that all data collection or sampling frequencies (eg, 1 measurement per minute vs 1 measurement every 2 hours) wedre taken into consideration;
• Studies conducted using data gathered from all acute and ambulatory care settings including medical or surgical hospital wards, ICUs, step-down units, ED, and in-home care;
• Quantitative, observational, retrospective, and prospective cohort studies and randomized controlled trials;
• Studies that involved ML or multivariable statistical or ML models and reported some model performance measure (eg, area under the curve) [17];
• Studies that reported mortality or any outcomes related to clinical deterioration so that EWS models and performance can be examined for all explored outcomes.

The exclusion criteria included the following:

• Studies that used any laboratory values as predictors for the ML-based EWS, as this review focuses on examining time-sensitive predictions of clinical deterioration using patient parameters that are readily available across all care settings;
• Studies involving pediatric or obstetric populations due to these patients having different or altered physiologies that cannot be compared to standard adult patients;
• Qualitative studies, reviews, preprints, case reports, commentaries, or conference proceedings.

Study Selection

References from the preliminary searches were handled using Mendeley reference management software. After duplicates were removed, titles and abstracts were screened to assess preliminary eligibility. Eligible studies were then read in full length to be assessed against the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Data Extraction

Data were extracted from eligible studies using an extraction sheet that followed the PRISMA [18] and Cochrane Collaboration guidelines for systematic reviews [19] and the Transparent Reporting of a Multivariable Prediction Model for Individual Prognosis or Diagnosis (TRIPOD) guidelines [20] for the reporting of predictive models. Study characteristics, setting, demographics, patient outcomes, ML model characteristics, and model performance data were extracted. The model performance results were extracted from the validation data set rather than from the model derivation or training data set to decrease the potential for model overfitting. When studies explored multiple ML models, the model with the best performance was selected for reporting and comparison. If studies compared the performance of ML models to aggregate-weighted EWS, then the performance data of these warning systems were also extracted.

Results

Search Results and Study Selection

The search for “vital signs” AND “clinical deterioration” AND “machine learning” using the same query terms and filters identified 417 studies after duplicate removal. During the title and abstract screening process, 386 studies were excluded. Of the 31 full-text articles that were assessed, 7 studies were excluded for not meeting the eligibility criteria: 2 studies did not use ML models to predict deterioration, 3 studies included vital sign measurements in addition to laboratory values as predictors, 1 study focused on a cohort of pregnant women, and 1 study did not meet the criteria for model performance measures. A review of the reference lists of the 24 selected studies did not yield any additional studies fulfilling the eligibility criteria (refer to Figure 1).

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Study Characteristics

Of the selected studies, 23 conducted a retrospective analysis of the vital signs data, while 1 study [21] used a prospective cohort study design. Seventeen studies only analyzed continuous vital signs measurements collected through wearable devices and bedside monitors, whereas 3 [22-24] studies analyzed vital signs that were collected both manually and intermittently by clinical staff. Two studies [25,26] analyzed vital signs that were collected both continuously and intermittently, while the remaining 2 studies did not report how the vital sign data were collected.

Studies were conducted in a variety of settings within hospitals while the study by Larburu et al [22] was conducted in an ambulatory setting. While 3 studies [27-29] aimed to develop a remote home-based monitoring tool, the vital sign data used were obtained from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC and MIMIC-II) databases [30,31] consisting of data captured from patient monitors in different ICUs. Regarding location, 5 studies [24,26,32-34] were conducted on general wards, 4 studies [11,23,35,36] were conducted in EDs, 7 studies [26,34,37-41] were conducted in ICUs, 2 studies [25,42] were conducted in postoperative wards, and 4 studies [21,43-45] in acute stay wards (medical admission unit, step-down units). Cohort sizes for the studies ranged from 12 patients [39] to 10,967,518 patient visits [11] (refer to Table 1).

Predictor Variables

The most commonly used vital sign predictors were HR, RR, systolic BP, diastolic BP, SpO₂, body temperature, level of consciousness through either the Glasgow Coma Score or the AVPU scale, and mean arterial pressure. Measurement frequencies for these variables ranged from once every 5 seconds [32] in hospital wards to 3-7 times per week [22] in an ambulatory setting. Other commonly used predictors included age, gender, weight, ethnicity, chief complaint, and comorbidities.

Outcomes

The outcomes being predicted in most studies focused on cardiorespiratory insufficiency–related events. Cardiac arrest was the primary outcome in 7 [24,26,35,36,38,42,45] studies, while general cardiorespiratory deterioration or decompensation was the primary outcome in 5 studies [25,39,41,43,44]. Another commonly predicted outcome was sepsis, which included the time of onset of sepsis [34,37,40], severe sepsis [33,34], septic shock [34], and sepsis-related mortality [23]. Other outcomes explored within the studies include unanticipated ICU admissions [24,42,45], development of critical illness [24], general physiological deterioration [25,32,39,46], abnormal or dangerous clinical events [27-29], and mortality [11,24,42].

Outcomes were first identified, and baseline models were created using predefined parameter thresholds (ground truth) consistent with the MEWS [23,26,35] or NEWS [23,42,46] criteria for cardiorespiratory instability and general physiological deterioration, while the sepsis-related outcomes were identified based on the thresholds set within the systemic inflammatory response syndrome [34], quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) [23], and SOFA [37] criteria. Some studies [22,27-29,43,44] also used thresholds and criteria based on the population served by their individual care setting.

ML Models and Performance

All included studies consider the prediction of deterioration risk to be a classification task and therefore use different types of classification models in the process, including tree-based models, linear models, kernel-based methods, and neural networks (refer to Table 2 for a full inventory of methods used, model performance achieved, and prediction windows, and see Multimedia Appendix 2 for a description of ML methods).

Measures used to assess model performance varied across the studies. The most common measure was the area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUROC) along with model accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Area under the precision-recall, F-score, Hamming’s score, and precision (positive predictive value) were reported less commonly.

Prediction windows ranged from 30 minutes to 30 days before an event.

Model performance varied substantially based on outcome measure being predicted (eg, cardiorespiratory insufficiency vs sepsis), ML method used (eg, linear vs tree-based), and prediction window (eg, 30 minutes before an event vs 4 hours before).

Comparison With Aggregate-Weighted EWS

Nine studies compared the performance of ML-based EWS with aggregate-weighted EWS. Studies exploring cardiorespiratory outcomes, general physiological deterioration, or mortality carried out comparisons with NEWS [42,45], MEWS [11,26,35,36], and the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction score [36]. The 3 studies exploring sepsis-related outcomes additionally included the SOFA, qSOFA, and SIRS criteria and the simplified acute physiology (II) score [23,34,37]. A few studies also drew comparisons with other customized scoring systems individual to their care setting or region such as the Korean Triage and Acuity Score [11], Singapore Emergency Department Sepsis model [23], and postanesthesia care unit alarm system [46].

In all 9 studies, the ML models performed better than the aggregate-weighted EWS systems for all clinical outcomes except for cardiac arrest in the study by Badriyah et al [45]. For example, in the study by Jang et al [35], a long short-term memory neural network achieved an AUROC of 0.933, an improvement over MEWS, which achieved an AUROC of 0.886 using the same data. Similarly, in the study by Kwon et al [26], recurrent neural networks achieved an AUROC of 0.85 compared to 0.603 for MEWS and 0.785 for the Korean Triage and Acuity Score. Some studies reported much more modest improvements, such as the study by Chiu et al [42] that achieved an AUROC of 0.779 using logistic regression, compared to 0.754 using MEWS for the same 24-hour prediction window. A full side-by-side comparison of ML vs aggregate-weighted EWS is presented in Multimedia Appendix 3.

Discussion

Based on this scoping review, ML-based EWS models show considerable promise, but there exist several important avenues for future research if these models are to be effectively implemented in clinical practice.

Prediction Window

A model’s prediction window refers to how far in advance a model is predicting an adverse event. Most studies included in our review used a prediction window between 30 minutes [26] and 72 hours [36] before the clinical deterioration took place. The length of a model’s prediction window is important because a prediction window that is too short will not yield any real clinical benefit (it would not give a clinical team sufficient time to intervene), but a number of studies [29,34,37,42] showed a decrease in model performance when the prediction window was longer (eg, AUROC drops from 0.88 at the time of onset to 0.74 at 4 hours before the event). Future research seeking to maximize the clinical benefit of ML EWS should strive to achieve an optimum balance between a clinically relevant prediction window and clinically acceptable model performance, rather than simply maximizing a model performance metric, such as AUROC.

Clinically Actionable Explanations

The studies included in this review focused on ML model development and did not explore how the output of these models would be communicated to clinicians. Since many ML models are “black boxes” [46,47], it may not be immediately clear to clinicians what the likely reason for an alert might be until the patient is assessed, which can cause further delays in time-sensitive scenarios. However, in the broader ML field, there has been significant recent progress in explainable ML techniques, and it has been pointed out that these approaches may be preferred by the medical community and regulators [48,49]. Several explanation methods take specific, previously black-box methods, such as convolutional neural networks [50], and allow for post-hoc explanation of their decision-making process. Other explainability algorithms are model-agnostic, meaning they can be applied to any type of model, regardless of its mathematical basis [51]. In the study by Lauritsen et al [52], an explainable EWS was developed based on a temporal convolutional network, using a separate module for explanations. These methodologies are promising, but their application to health care, including to EWS, has been limited. Objective evaluation of the utility of explanation methods is a difficult, ongoing problem, but is an important direction for future research in the area of ML-based EWS if they are to be effectively deployed in clinical practice [53].

Expanded Study Settings

Nearly all the studies included in this review were conducted in inpatient settings. While EWS are highly valuable in an inpatient context, there is also considerable need in the ambulatory setting, particularly postdischarge. For example, the VISION study [54] found that 1.8% of all patients die within 30 days postsurgery and 29.4% of all deaths occurred after patients were discharged from hospital. Patients often receive postoperative monitoring only 3-4 weeks [54] after discharge during a follow-up visit with their surgeon. During this period, it has been shown that many patients suffer from prolonged unidentified hypoxemia [55] and hypotension [56], which are precursors to serious postoperative complications. While EWS research has historically focused on inpatient settings due to the availability of continuous vital signs data, the increasing availability of remote patient monitoring and wearable technologies offer the opportunity to direct future EWS research to the ambulatory setting to address a significant clinical need.

Retrospective Versus Prospective Evaluation

All but one study [21] included in this review were retrospective in nature, leaving open the possibility that algorithm performance in a clinical environment may be lower than the performance achieved in a controlled retrospective setting [34]. It is also unclear how often these EWS were able to identify clinical deterioration that had not already been detected by a care team. Further, alerts for clinical deterioration may be easily disregarded by clinicians due to alert fatigue, even when the risk of deterioration has been correctly identified [43]. In the single case where an ML-based EWS was studied prospectively, Olsen et al [21] found that the random forest classifier decreased false alarm rates by 85% and the rate of missed alerts by 73% when compared to the existing aggregate-weighted alarm system. While the predictions were independently scored for severity by 2 clinician experts, the interpretation of the clinical impact of these alerts was not explored any further, leaving the question of clinical benefit unanswered. Future research into ML-based EWS should begin to include prospective evaluation, both of model accuracy (to understand how model performance is affected when faced with real-world data) and of clinical outcomes (to understand whether alerts in fact produce clinical benefits).

Standardizations of Performance Metrics

A key observation from this review is the lack of an agreed-upon standard among the research community for reporting performance measures across studies. This makes meaningful comparison between the outcomes of these studies difficult, and where there is overlap, it is not clear that the most clinically relevant metrics have been chosen. The majority of the studies in this review report the AUROC as the main performance metric, reflecting a common practice in the ML literature. However, AUROC may not be adequate for evaluating the performance of the EWS in a clinical setting [57].

As Romero-Brufau et al [58] discussed in their article, AUROC does not incorporate information about the prevalence of physiological deterioration, which can be lower than 0.02 daily in a general inpatient setting. This can make AUROC a misleading metric, leading to overestimation of clinical benefit and underestimation of clinical workload and resources. [58] When the prevalence is low (<0.1), even a model with high sensitivity and specificity may not yield a high posttest probability for a positive prediction [15]. Therefore, reporting metrics that incorporate the prevalence would be more appropriate.

The performance of an EWS depends on the tradeoff between 2 goals: early detection of outcomes versus issuance of fewer false-positive alerts to prevent alarm fatigue [43]. Sensitivity can be a good metric to evaluate the first goal as it would provide the percentage of true-positive predictions within a certain time period. To evaluate the clinical burden of false-positive alerts, the positive predictive value, which incorporates prevalence, can be used as it gives a percentage of useful alerts that lead to a clinical outcome. The number needed to evaluate can be a useful measure of clinical utility and cost-efficiency of each alert as it provides the number of patients that need to be evaluated further to detect one outcome. Using these metrics to evaluate tradeoffs between outcome detection and workload would be essential for determining the clinical utility of the EWS [58]. Additionally, the F1 score can also be a useful metric as it provides a measure of the model’s overall accuracy through the calculation of the harmonic mean of the precision and recall (sensitivity). Balancing the use of these 2 metrics could yield a more realistic measure of the model’s performance [58].

Comparison to “Gold Standard” EWS

On a related note, only 9 of the studies included in our review made comparisons between their ML-based models and a “gold standard” aggregate-weighted EWS, such as MEWS or NEWS. Future research in the area should report a commonly used aggregate-weighted EWS as a baseline model, which would aid in making effective comparisons between them. NEWS may be particularly well suited to this area of research as its input variables can all be measured automatically and continuously via devices.

Strengths of the Review

The search strategy was comprehensive while not being too focused on specific clinical outcomes, sampling frequencies, or filtering for time. This allowed for the identification of as many studies as possible that examined the use of ML models and vital signs to predict the risk of patient deterioration. No additional studies were identified through citation tracking after the original search, indicating our search strategy was comprehensive. Unlike previous reviews, inclusion criteria for the review supported the examination of findings from studies conducted across a variety of clinical settings including specialty units or wards and ambulatory care. This helped in characterizing the use of ML-based prediction models in different patient-care environments with varying clinical endpoints. Wherever the original studies provided the data, comparisons were drawn between the performance of the ML models and that of aggregate-weighted EWS. This gives an indication of the differences in accuracy of the models in predicting clinical deterioration.

Limitations

The findings within this review are subject to some limitations. First, the literature search, assessment of eligibility of full-text articles, inclusion in the review, and extraction of study data were carried out by only 1 author. Second, only the findings from published studies were included in this scoping review, which may affect the results due to publication bias. While studies from a variety of settings were included, the generalizability of our findings may be limited due to the heterogeneity of patient populations, clinical practices, and study methodologies. Sampling procedures and frequencies varied across studies from single to multiple observations of patient vital signs, and clinical outcome definitions were based on different criteria or aggregate-weighted EWS. Finally, due to this variation in ML methods, prediction windows, and outcome reporting, a meta-analysis was not feasible.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that ML-based EWS models incorporating easily accessible vital sign measurements are effective in predicting physiological deterioration in patients. Improved prediction performance was also observed with these models when compared to traditional aggregate-based risk stratification tools. The clinical impact of these ML-based EWS could be significant for clinical staff and patients due to decreased false alerts and increased early detection of warning signs for timely intervention, though further development of these models is needed and the necessary prospective research to establish actual clinical utility does not yet exist.