BARDA and PeraHealth partner to develop machine learning app for COVID-19 triage

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is collaborating with PeraHealth, Inc., to develop a mobile and desktop application that can assess the risk of severe outcome in COVID-19 patients and separately within the general medical patient population in hospital emergency departments. This partnership will leverage PeraHealth’s expertise in machine learning (ML)-powered software design to build risk triage tools based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared Rothman Index (RI), an ML-derived algorithm.

Providing a risk assessment of deterioration for patients entering the emergency department can help health care professionals determine the most appropriate level of care for patients to improve outcomes and optimize hospital resources. The RI Risk Triage app is being developed with partner hospitals to optimize workflow, assess user feedback, and explore feasibility of wide deployment during the pandemic. In addition, the app will also be adapted for non-COVID-19 patient assessment to have continued impact as the pandemic wanes.

During emergency responses to major public health threats such as pandemics, risk assessment and patient triage tools are critical to ensuring that patients are provided the best possible life-saving care. Anticipating patient trajectory and the potential for physiological decompensation can also help optimize the allocation of, at times, very limited resources. The goal of this project is to make this RI Risk Triage app widely available to U.S. hospitals via a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)-secure cloud-based application, which could greatly improve response to current health threats and preparedness for future challenges.

Read more: https://www.medicalcountermeasures.gov/newsroom/2021/perahealth/