• Dong Hyun Choi, Sae Won Choi, Ki Hong Kim, Yeongho Choi, and Yoonjic Kim.
• Laboratory of Emergency Medical Services, Seoul National University Hospital Biomedical Research Institute, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2024 Jun 1; 80: 677667-76.

ObjectiveTo develop and externally validate models based on neural networks and natural language processing (NLP) to identify suspected serious infections in emergency department (ED) patients afebrile at initial presentation.MethodsThis retrospective study included adults who visited the ED afebrile at initial presentation. We developed four models based on artificial neural networks to identify suspected serious infection. Patient demographics, vital signs, laboratory test results and information extracted from initial ED physician notes using term frequency-inverse document frequency were used as model variables. Models were trained and internally validated with data from one hospital and externally validated using data from a different hospital. Model discrimination was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).ResultsThe training, internal validation, and external validation datasets comprised 150,699, 37,675, and 85,098 patients, respectively. The AUCs (95% CIs) for Models 1 (demographics + vital signs), 2 (demographics + vital signs + initial ED physician note), 3 (demographics + vital signs + laboratory tests), and 4 (demographics + vital signs + laboratory tests + initial ED physician note) in the internal validation dataset were 0.789 (0.782-0.796), 0.867 (0.862-0.872), 0.881 (0.876-0.887), and 0.911 (0.906-0.915), respectively. In the external validation dataset, the AUCs (95% CIs) of Models 1, 2, 3, and 4 were 0.824 (0.817-0.830), 0.895 (0.890-0.899), 0.879 (0.873-0.884), and 0.913 (0.909-0.917), respectively. Model 1 can be utilized immediately after ED triage, Model 2 can be utilized after the initial physician notes are recorded (median time from ED triage: 28 min), and Models 3 and 4 can be utilized after the initial laboratory tests are reported (median time from ED triage: 68 min).ConclusionsWe developed and validated models to identify suspected serious infection in the ED. Extracted information from initial ED physician notes using NLP contributed to increased model performance, permitting identification of suspected serious infection at early stages of ED visits.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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