A novel triage framework for emergency department based on machine learning paradigm

Emergency departments, crucial in managing patient emergencies, are often challenged by overcrowding and diagnostic errors during triage-the process that assesses the urgency of patients' conditions. Traditional triage systems, heavily dependent on human judgement, are prone to errors like under-triage, where severe conditions are missed, delaying treatment, and over-triage, where less severe conditions are overly prioritized, causing unnecessary resource use and morbidity. This thesis presents a novel multi-model machine-learning framework designed to enhance triage accuracy by evaluating multiple medical conditions concurrently, including chronic illnesses like heart disease. The framework employs various machine-learning techniques-such as logistic regression, support vector machines, random forests, deep neural networks, and decision trees-to analyze different medical conditions in two comprehensive phases. In the first phase, patients' conditions are categorized, and a multi-tiered analysis using multiple classifiers refines the assessment by considering probabilistic outcomes from each classifier. The second phase synthesizes these insights into a unified and precise triage decision, distinguishing between patients who require critical care and those needing less urgent hospitalization. This integration of diverse machine learning models allows for a fused and precise triage decision, overcoming traditional triage systems' limitations that usually focus on single conditions and rely on isolated model predictions. A hybrid feature selection method is also utilized to identify critical predictors, enhancing the decision-making process. The framework is validated through a specially curated dataset that simulates multiple triage scenarios, evaluated by medical experts for efficacy. Comparative analysis with traditional triage methods demonstrates significant improvements in decision accuracy, as evidenced by higher area under curve (AUC) values-0.95 for critical care and 0.90 for hospitalization. The implementation of this data-driven approach substantially reduces human error, boosts operational efficiency, and aids medical staff in making rapid, informed decisions. This research represents a significant advancement in emergency medical care, illustrating the benefits of integrating sophisticated machine learning techniques to improve patient outcomes and resource management.