SPECIAL NEWS ISSUE: MEDICAL | TECHNICAL | PHARMACEUTICAL | INDUSTRIAL Targeted Real-time Early Warning System (TREWS) for hospitals Early detection of sepsis with the help of an AI system 14-17 November 2022 Visit us » hall 7 / E15 y t i s r e v i n U s n i k p o H n h o J © automatically and continuously monitors disparate clinical data, including vital signs, laboratory data, medication history, procedure and clinical history, and physician notes. It generates a continuous real-time "sepsis score" that can trigger an alert to healthcare staff. Clinical caregivers can analyse why the TREWS alert was generated, accept or dismiss it, and initiate timely treatment on patients con- firmed to be septic. During the study time period, caregivers evaluated 89 % of all alerts, 53 % within 60 minutes. The researchers attribute this high rate of utilization in part to the fact that the system was tuned to achieve the highest possible performance without generating excessive inac- When Sterility is Indicated... V i s i t u s a t s t a n d 9 D 4 1 Give us your opinion and you could WIN $125 Visit www.parkerlabs.com/sa100q.php curate alert warnings. It became trusted by clinical staff. ‘Our results showing high phy- sician adoption and associated mortality and morbidity reduc- tions are a milestone for the field of AI,’ comments Saria. ‘They are the culmination of nearly a de- cade of significant technological investment, deep collaboration, the development of novel techniques, and rigorous evaluation. Further, what’s most exciting here is that this approach is applicable not just to sepsis but to many other critical complications.’ In an accompanying commentary, Harvard Medical School Professor David W. Bates, MD, an interna- tionally renowned expert in patient safety and use of IT to improve patient care, and Ania Syrowatka MD, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow specializing in AI applica- tions in medicine, laud the studies as "pivotal" in showing that sepsis detection systems can work well at multiple sites and with a near 90 % clinical adoption rate. They caution about the challenges facing widespread adoption of such alert systems. They site the difficulties of implementation across diverse health systems, the expense and difficulty of hospitals adopting multiple AI technologies, and lim- itations of some EHR systems that do not allow real-time queries of patient EMRs or the capability to route an alert – such as a sepsis notification – to the most appro- priate clinical provider to respond. But they are positive as well, wri- ting, ‘Overall, these technologies have great potential to improve care and rapidly identify patients who are deteriorating, especially those with sepsis – which could help prevent deaths and reduce costs for large number of patients.’  Report: Cynthia E. Keen There’s Only One Choice: Sterile Aquasonic® 100 Ultrasound Transmission Gel. The World Standard for sterile ultrasound transmission. • Easy-to-open *Tyvek® overwrap Guarantees sterility of the inner foil pouch and the gel within • Consistent quality Aqueous, non-staining • Acoustically correct • Non-injurious to transducers • Available in 20 gram overwrapped foil pouches, 48 sterile pouches per box ISO 13485:2016 *Trademark of Dupont® © 2019 Parker Laboratories, Inc. The sound choice in patient care is a trademark of Parker Laboratories, Inc. MKT-0101-2 REV 3 Sepsis, a life-threatening, syste- mic, toxic bodily reaction to infec- tion, is often difficult to detect in its early stages. Its symptoms, including fever, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, and con- fusion, are associated with many medical conditions of hospita- lized patients. But if not treated rapidly, a patient may die. The Targeted Real-time Early Warning System (TREWS) for sepsis detec- tion is proving to be a highly effective, lifesaving high-precision bedside early warning system. In Europe, North America, and Australia, the average 30-day rate of sepsis shock mortality is 34.7 % and sepsis mortality 24.4 %, according to a 2020 meta- analysis of 170 studies published in Critical Care. Automated artifi- cial intelligence (AI) sepsis detec- tion systems in use and in deve- lopment confirm that alerts at the first indications of sepsis do save lives. But many are criticized for lack of sensitivity and generating too many inaccurate alerts, to the point where they are ignored. TREWS is based on its use for two years monitoring 590,736 inpa- tients at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., and three affiliated area community hospitals. This early warning sys- tem has reduced mortality of sep- sis patients by nearly 20 %. Patients who had an evaluation and confirmation of sepsis within 3 hours of a TREWS sepsis alert received antibiotics a median time of 1.85 hours earlier than sepsis patients whose conditions were not reviewed in as timely a man- ner. The "rapid treatment" patient group had a lower mortality rate by 19 % and improved sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score. These positive findings were even more pronounced for sicker, high- risk patients who received rapid antibiotic treatment. In the most severe cases, where an hour delay in diagnosis can mean the difference between life and death, TREWS detected sepsis an average of nearly six hours earlier than when patients were first detec- ted and treated under the current standard of care. Monitoring clinical data Suchi Saria, PhD, director of the Machine Learning and Healthcare Lab at Johns Hopkins, who led this work, explains that TREWS www.healthcare-in-europe.com