Artificial intelligence (AI) can help doctors identify patients at risk for suicide, potentially improving prevention efforts in routine medical settings, according to new research.
The research, reported in the journal JAMA Network Open, compared two approaches — automatic pop-up alerts that interrupted the doctor’s workflow versus a more passive system that simply displayed risk information in the patient’s electronic chart.
The team found that the interruptive alerts were far more effective, leading doctors to conduct suicide risk assessments in connection with 42 per cent of screening alerts, compared to just 4 per cent with the passive system.
Colin Walsh, associate professor of biomedical informatics, medicine, and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, noted that most people who die by suicide have seen a health care provider in the year before their death, often for reasons unrelated to mental health.
The team tested their AI system, called the Vanderbilt Suicide Attempt and Ideation Likelihood model (VSAIL), to determine whether it could effectively prompt doctors in three neurology clinics to screen patients for suicide risk during routine visits.
“Universal screening isn’t practical in every setting. We developed VSAIL to help identify high-risk patients and prompt focused screening conversations,” said Walsh.
The VSAIL model analyses routine information from electronic health records to calculate a patient’s 30-day risk of suicide attempt.
The researchers suggested that similar systems could be tested in other medical settings.
Health care systems need to balance the effectiveness of interruptive alerts against their potential downsides, Walsh said.
“The findings indicate that automated risk detection, when paired with thoughtfully designed alerts, has the potential to significantly improve suicide prevention efforts,” the authors concluded.
Studies have shown that 77 per cent of people who die by suicide have contact with primary care providers in the year before their death.
(Inputs from IANS)
