In less than a year, the pandemic has spurred the development of countless artificial intelligence models designed to aid in the diagnosis of Covid-19 and spot early warning signs of severe illness among those infected. But so far, only a few have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. That scarcity is a sign of the newness of these tools — as well as the murkiness of the regulatory landscape at a time when unapproved algorithms are being widely tested and rolled out in the clinic.
The latest such authorization, which amounts to a conditional approval of a product, was granted to a system meant to predict whether hospitalized Covid-19 patients are at risk of needing intubation — a heads-up that could allow clinicians to take mitigating steps and plan accordingly. The model was developed by Dascena, a San Francisco Bay Area company working on clinical machine learning systems for conditions including sepsis and acute kidney injury.
Unlock this article by subscribing to STAT+ and enjoy your first 30 days free!
GET STARTEDWhat is it?
STAT+ is STAT's premium subscription service for in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis. Our award-winning team covers news on Wall Street, policy developments in Washington, early science breakthroughs and clinical trial results, and health care disruption in Silicon Valley and beyond.
What's included?
- Daily reporting and analysis
- The most comprehensive industry coverage from a powerhouse team of reporters
- Subscriber-only newsletters
- Daily newsletters to brief you on the most important industry news of the day
- STAT+ Conversations
- Weekly opportunities to engage with our reporters and leading industry experts in live video conversations
- Exclusive industry events
- Premium access to subscriber-only networking events around the country
- The best reporters in the industry
- The most trusted and well-connected newsroom in the health care industry
- And much more
- Exclusive interviews with industry leaders, profiles, and premium tools, like our CRISPR Trackr.
