Real-time prediction of COVID-19 related mortality using electronic health records

Nat Commun. 2021 Feb 16;12(1):1058. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20816-7.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory disease with rapid human-to-human transmission caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Due to the exponential growth of infections, identifying patients with the highest mortality risk early is critical to enable effective intervention and prioritisation of care. Here, we present the COVID-19 early warning system (CovEWS), a risk scoring system for assessing COVID-19 related mortality risk that we developed using data amounting to a total of over 2863 years of observation time from a cohort of 66 430 patients seen at over 69 healthcare institutions. On an external cohort of 5005 patients, CovEWS predicts mortality from 78.8% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 76.0, 84.7%) to 69.4% (95% CI: 57.6, 75.2%) specificity at sensitivities greater than 95% between, respectively, 1 and 192 h prior to mortality events. CovEWS could enable earlier intervention, and may therefore help in preventing or mitigating COVID-19 related mortality.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19 / mortality*
  • Computer Systems*
  • Early Warning Score
  • Electronic Health Records*
  • Humans
  • Organ Dysfunction Scores
  • SARS-CoV-2 / physiology
  • Survival Analysis
  • Time Factors