Title
Machine learning for psychiatric patient triaging: an investigation of cascading classifiers.
Abstract
Objective: Develop an approach, One-class-at-a-time, for triaging psychiatric patients using machine learning on textual patient records. Our approach aims to automate the triaging process and reduce expert effort while providing high classification reliability. Materials and Methods: The One-class-at-a-time approach is a multistage cascading classification technique that achieves higher triage classification accuracy compared to traditional multiclass classifiers through 1) classifying one class at a time (or stage), and 2) identification and application of the highest accuracy classifier at each stage. The approach was evaluated using a unique dataset of 433 psychiatric patient records with a triage class label provided by "I2B2 challenge," a recent competition in the medical informatics community. Results: The One-class-at-a-time cascading classifier outperformed state-of-the-art classification techniques with overall classification accuracy of 77% among 4 classes, exceeding accuracies of existing multiclass classifiers. The approach also enabled highly accurate classification of individual classes-the severe and mild with 85% accuracy, moderate with 64% accuracy, and absent with 60% accuracy. Discussion: The triaging of psychiatric cases is a challenging problem due to the lack of clear guidelines and protocols. Our work presents a machine learning approach using psychiatric records for triaging patients based on their severity condition. Conclusion: The One-class-at-a-time cascading classifier can be used as a decision aid to reduce triaging effort of physicians and nurses, while providing a unique opportunity to involve experts at each stage to reduce false positive and further improve the system's accuracy.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1093/jamia/ocy109
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL INFORMATICS ASSOCIATION
Keywords
Field
DocType
triage,cascading classification,decision aid,ensemble algorithms,I2B2 challenge,text mining
Cascading classifiers,Artificial intelligence,Medicine,Machine learning
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
25
11
1067-5027
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
2
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
v k singh122.10
Utkarsh Shrivastava295.94
Lina Bouayad311.03
Balaji Padmanabhan469055.96
Anna Ialynytchev500.34
susan k schultz631.07