Developing Artificial Intelligence Framework for Acuity Assessment in Psychiatry Units

(February 21, 2024) — The high demand for transfers from Emergency Department to psychiatric inpatient units, and the limited supply of available beds imposes serious challenges to the management and care of patients with acute psychiatric conditions. Hospital admission decisions are based on a variety of factors, most importantly patient acuity and receiving unit acuity. Although acuity rating scales are prevalent in critical care, there are no validated acuity rating tools in inpatient psychiatry.

Karan Kverno, PhD, PMHNP-BC, PMHCNS-BC, FAANP, FAAN, in partnership with MedStar Health, will initiate data collection efforts at two Medstar Health inpatient psychiatry units, and to develop an innovative data-driven Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning model for estimating psychiatric patient and unit acuity.

The work is supported by Georgetown’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship’s Initiative on Pedagogical Uses of Artificial Intelligence. Read more about this research project here.