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Artificial Intelligence and the combat of the coronavirus

Medical specialists and data scientists will implement artificial intelligence in combating the coronavirus. Experts of the Maastricht UMC+ will participate in this research and focus on the development of a model to predict if a COVID-19 patient will need a respirator. The data of previous patients will be used in this process. 

The initiative to implement artificial intelligence and machine learning is coordinated by the Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Maastricht UMC+. In addition there is a cooperation between datascientists in companies and higher education. All Dutch hospitals and the Stichting Nationale Intensive Care Evaluatie (NICE) are involved. It's the utmost intention that this research will not lead to more workload for the medical experts who are involved in care of COVID-19 patients. "Administrative tasks and data-analyses can be handled by assistant physicians who have no clinical tasks to fulfill currently", explains neurosurgeon and eHealth-expert dr. Pieter Kubben. "There medical knowledge is more than sufficient."

Predictionmodel
In the upcoming weeks the first data will be collected and analysed, in closes cooperation with all departments which are involved in the diagnoses and treatment of corona patiënts. From the Emergency Care and Internal Medicine to the Intensive Care. Many data are already collected in these departments via the electronic patiënt record. "For instance laboratory values and scans", explains intensivist Marcel Ariës of Maastricht UMC+. "Based on the data of hundreds of patiënts we hope to develop at short notice a predictionmodel for the future needs of respirators by new COVID-19 patiënts. In this way you should be able to predict who will need an Intensive Care bed in the near future.

Data
The necessary data will be 'pseudonymised'. This means the risk of being tracked to specific patiënts will be minimal. In this exceptional crisis situation there is no persmission requested by the patiënt or loved ones to use the data, due to the importance of public health. Because patients are often too ill to give permission and to prevent that care takers and loved ones are even more overburden. Patiënts and loved ones are eventually allowed to complain at the hospitals. In such case their data will not be used.

In case (as a patient or legal representative of a patient) you would like to complain about the use of data for scientific research, you can send an email to privacy@mumc.nl.

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