A machine learning system to improve heart failure patient assistance

IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2014 Nov;18(6):1750-6. doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2014.2337752. Epub 2014 Jul 10.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a clinical decision support system (CDSS) for the analysis of heart failure (HF) patients, providing various outputs such as an HF severity evaluation, HF-type prediction, as well as a management interface that compares the different patients' follow-ups. The whole system is composed of a part of intelligent core and of an HF special-purpose management tool also providing the function to act as interface for the artificial intelligence training and use. To implement the smart intelligent functions, we adopted a machine learning approach. In this paper, we compare the performance of a neural network (NN), a support vector machine, a system with fuzzy rules genetically produced, and a classification and regression tree and its direct evolution, which is the random forest, in analyzing our database. Best performances in both HF severity evaluation and HF-type prediction functions are obtained by using the random forest algorithm. The management tool allows the cardiologist to populate a "supervised database" suitable for machine learning during his or her regular outpatient consultations. The idea comes from the fact that in literature there are a few databases of this type, and they are not scalable to our case.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Artificial Intelligence*
  • Decision Support Systems, Clinical*
  • Fuzzy Logic
  • Heart Failure / physiopathology*
  • Humans
  • Natriuretic Peptide, Brain
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Stroke Volume
  • Telemedicine / methods*

Substances

  • Natriuretic Peptide, Brain