University of Oxford scientists specialising in infectious disease and clinical machine learning have developed an artificial intelligence test that can rapidly screen for COVID-19 in patients arriving in emergency departments.
The initial findings of the ‘CURIAL’ AI test, which has been supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), appeared in a preprint paper.
The test assesses data routinely collected during the first hour in emergency departments, such as blood tests and vital signs, to determine the chance of a patient testing positive for Coronavirus.
Currently, testing for Covid-19 is by a molecular analysis of a nose and throat swab, which typically has a turnaround time of 12 to 48 hours and requires specialist equipment and staff. The AI developed in the new Oxford study gives a near real-time prediction of a patient’s Covid-19 status.
The team is led by Dr Andrew Soltan, an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow at the John Radcliffe Hospital, joining with the ‘AI for Healthcare’ lab of Professor David Clifton within Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor David Eyre, an Oxford BRC Senior Research Fellow from the Oxford Big Data Institute.