Machine learning based clinical decision support system for early COVID-19 mortality prediction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory disease that has been classified as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO). The sudden spike in the number of infections and high mortality rates have put immense pressure on the public medical systems. Hence, it is crucial to identify the key factors of mortality that yield high accuracy and consistency to optimize patient treatment strategy. This study uses machine learning methods to identify a powerful combination of five features that help predict mortality with 96% accuracy: neutrophils, lymphocytes, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and age. Various machine learning algorithms have been compared to achieve a consistent high accuracy across the days that span the disease. Robust testing with three cases confirm the strong predictive performance of the proposed model. The model predicts with an accuracy of 90% as early as 16 days before the outcome. This study would help accelerate the decision making process in healthcare systems for focused medical treatments early and accurately.