AI Software Cuts Sepsis Deaths In Half At Florida Hospital

Matthieu Riegler, CC-by, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A Florida hospital has cut sepsis-related deaths by half by utilizing advanced technology that continuously monitors patients to detect potential early warning signs, The Times reported on Tuesday.

Tampa General Hospital has saved almost 900 lives over four years after implementing the Palantir-developed Sepsis Hub system, The Times reported. The software tracks every patient’s vital signs of every patient around the clock and can notify a “rapid response team” of hospital employees to any slight changes that could indicate sepsis, according to the outlet.

Palantir and Tampa General Hospital each did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Some doctors claim the same technology could become more widely adopted globally in the future, including in the National Health Service, the United Kingdom’s publicly funded healthcare system, per The Times’ report.

“This is someone’s mother, brother, sister that is going home, when before this project and these tools they would not have. From a clinical perspective, it’s a game-changer,” Jaimie Weber, a doctor specializing in sepsis and the vice-president of medical informatics at Tampa General Hospital, told The Times.

The report comes as artificial intelligence (AI) tools have become more widely integrated into the U.S. healthcare system in recent years.

An AI-powered software notably failed to notice that a nurse working at a Tennessee hospital was pilfering fentanyl over the course of several months, CBS News first reported on June 1.

Additionally, at least 350,000 U.S. adults and over 1,800 children who develop sepsis die during their hospitalization or are discharged to hospice, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.