Machine learning – a field of artificial intelligence that uses statistical techniques to enable computer systems to ‘learn’ from data – can be used to analyse electronic health records and predict the risk of emergency hospital admissions, a new study from The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Oxford has found.
The research, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, suggests that using these techniques could help health practitioners accurately monitor the risks faced by patients and put in place measures to avoid unplanned admissions, which are a major source of healthcare spending.