Thieme E-Journals - Applied Clinical Informatics / Abstract

Background Machine learning (ML) has captured the attention of many clinicians who may not have formal training in this area but are otherwise increasingly exposed to ML literature that may be relevant to their clinical specialties. ML papers that follow an outcomes-based research format can be assessed using clinical research appraisal frameworks such as PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome). However, the PICO frameworks strain when applied to ML papers that create new ML models, which are akin to diagnostic tests. There is a need for a new framework to help assess such papers. Objective We propose a new framework to help clinicians systematically read and evaluate medical ML papers whose aim is to create a new ML model: ML-PICO (Machine Learning, Population, Identification, Crosscheck, Outcomes).