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The Department of Precision Medicine at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for Covid-19 patient triage.
Developed by the D-Lab group of the Department of Precision Medicine, the personalised medicine platform enables risk assessment of Covid-19 patients. It can integrate various types of available medical data and assess the risk of severe disease that needs mechanical ventilation.
Maastricht University Department of Precision Medicine head professor Philippe Lambin said: “We are excited to be participating in the global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic with our Decision Support System for risk assessment of Covid-19 patients.
“We have repurposed our AI methods, usually applied to oncology questions, to the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Meanwhile, the department recently received €920,000 (£814,965) from the European Commission for the DRAGON project.
The project uses AI and machine learning to provide a decision support system for better and more rapid Covid-19 diagnosis and prognosis.
The patient empowerment-centred decision support system will enable multiple stakeholders to participate in improved and more rapid diagnosis. In addition, it is said to improve the scope of precision medicine for accelerated development of new therapies.
The university added that the citizens and patients will be involved in system development.
Department of Precision Medicine Virtual Trial Unit head Dr Cary Oberije said: “One of our missions will be to coordinate an international prospective biomarker trial on Covid-19 patients. We want to understand this virus better and use this knowledge for future outbreaks, also for other viruses.”
The project will be supported by deploying a federated machine learning system, a technology developed in Maastricht by Lambin’s group. It will enable the GDPR-compliant use of multinational data resources.
