Israel Using Artificial Intelligence For Identifying High Risk Coronavirus Patients

One of the key health maintenance organizations of Israel is using AI to help detect the individuals who are most vulnerable to coronavirus complications. The system is developed by Maccabi Healthcare Services in collaboration with Medial EarlySign, an AI company. Maccabi mentions that the system has already highlighted two percent of its members, amounting to nearly forty thousand people.

The AI was adapted from a prevailing system trained to classify people most at risk from the deadly virus. Notably, the system uses millions of records from Maccabi, going back twenty-seven years.

In order to make its predictions, the system makes use of several medical parameters including an individual’s age, Body Mass Index, prior history of hospital admissions, and health conditions like heart disease or diabetes. The AI can scan through a massive number of records and identify those at risk.

Maccabi also uses the artificial intelligence-based system to figure out the level of treatment the individuals it marks might need if they get infected by the virus. The organization mentions that it is now talking to chief US healthcare providers that are interested in using artificial intelligence to speed up the testing of high-risk individuals.