Artificial intelligence can help predict the bacteria responsible for pneumonia in emergency rooms

A team of researchers showed that artificial intelligence (AI) could help predict the type of bacteria that caused the infection in patients with pneumonia. The research is presented at ASM Microbe Online, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. "This research highlights the potential of AI as a supplementary tool for physicians in identifying causal pathogens of pneumonia, even before sputum culture results are available," said Joowhan Sung, M.D., hospitalist at MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital. "We demonstrated that physicians could be assisted by AI to decide appropriate antibiotics." In the study, investigators showed that AI could use the information available in the emergency room and predict if the patient has MRSA or pseudomonas so that physicians can immediately prescribe specific antibiotics targeting specific bacteria.