Quick Summary
Singapore General Hospital (SGH) is collaborating with DXC Technology to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to assess the need for antibiotic prescriptions, minimize their usage, and select the most suitable antibiotics for patients.
Key Features and Findings
- AI Model Development: The AI model, named Augmented Intelligence in Infectious Diseases (AI2D), focuses on pneumonia cases and utilizes deidentified clinical data from approximately 8,000 SGH patients collected between 2019 and 2020.
- Efficiency in Case Review: A pilot study conducted in 2023 demonstrated that the AI2D reduced the number of cases needing review by threefold, identifying 624 out of 2,012 cases for further examination.
- Accuracy in Antibiotic Necessity: The AI model achieved 90% accuracy in determining the necessity of antibiotics for pneumonia cases, revealing that nearly 40% of prescribed antibiotics may have been unnecessary.
Importance of the Initiative
- Pneumonia accounts for 20% of infections treated at SGH, with antibiotic prescriptions being the most common.
- Patients typically stay in the hospital for two to nine days, costing the government up to SG$5,000 (over $3,500) for each subsidized patient.
- Globally, about 50% of acute care hospitals may be prescribing incorrect antibiotics, contributing to antimicrobial resistance.
Future Directions
- The research team is preparing a comparative study involving 200 SGH inpatients to further evaluate the AI model’s effectiveness in reducing antibiotic use.
- Plans are in place to extend the AI model to address urinary tract infections, another prevalent hospital-acquired infection.
Global Context
- Internationally, hospitals like China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan are also leveraging AI to combat antimicrobial resistance through innovative systems that monitor drug resistance and optimize treatment.
Expert Insight
Dr. Piotr Chlebicki, a senior consultant at SGH, emphasized the challenge doctors face in balancing the risks and benefits of antibiotic use, noting that timely and accurate prescriptions are crucial to avoid complications while preventing misuse that leads to resistance.