Geisinger runner-up in national AI Health Outcomes Challenge

DANVILLE, Pa. – Geisinger has been named runner-up out of more than 300 entries in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge.

Geisinger partnered with Medial EarlySign, a leader in machine learning-based solutions to aid in early detection and prevention of high-burden diseases, to use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict unplanned hospital admissions, readmissions occurring soon after hospital discharge, healthcare-associated complications, and mortality. The two entities collaborated to develop models that predict the risk of these outcomes using Medicare administrative claims data and created novel visualizations to explain the results in a clinician-friendly manner, a key component of AI implementation.

“We are honored to be recognized as a national leader in using artificial intelligence to improve health outcomes,” said David Vawdrey, Geisinger’s chief data informatics officer. “The opportunity to participate in the CMS competition has significantly broadened our capabilities to design and implement predictive models, which will ultimately help prevent unnecessary hospitalizations and complications and reduce healthcare costs.” 

Geisinger and EarlySign’s shared vision of innovation and their collective focus on patient-centered care garnered recognition by CMS for “consistent strong performance across all competition elements while generating the best prediction accuracy results.” Their ability to successfully communicate predictions to clinicians, known as AI explainability, was a key factor in their selection as runner-up.
“This achievement demonstrates the synergistic relationship Geisinger and EarlySign have in the journey to provide better care for patients,” said Ori Geva, co-founder and chief executive officer of Medial EarlySign. “This recognition is another validation that successful clinical AI solutions require deep understanding of clinical workflow, and expertise in clinical machine learning and clinical data.”

The CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge launched in 2019 with more than 300 entities proposing AI solutions for predicting patient health outcomes. Submissions aimed to forecast a variety of outcomes, including unplanned admissions related to heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and various other high-risk conditions; and adverse events such as hospital-acquired infections, sepsis, and respiratory failure. 

Geisinger was chosen as one of seven finalists in November 2020. To select the winner and runner-up, CMS conducted a rigorous evaluation process, supported by a team of AI scientists. Clinicians from the American Academy of Family Physicians, a CMS partner in the AI Challenge, reviewed and scored the models’ explainability. Submissions were reviewed and winners selected by a panel of CMS senior leadership. 
For more information on Geisinger’s work with artificial intelligence and machine learning, click here.

About Medial EarlySign™
Medial EarlySign helps healthcare systems keep patients healthier longer. EarlySign accelerates the successful use of AI and Machine Learning solutions within clinical workflows with insights driven from real world data allowing early detection and prevention of high-burden complications and conditions. With a focus on better outcomes and reduced costs, EarlySign partners with clients to deploy one or more of its pre-built, outcome-focused  solutions (AlgoMarkers™) for augmenting early detection of cancers, indicating chronic diseases progression and deterioration, stratifying risks for unplanned admissions and adverse events and complications from infectious diseases. EarlySign also partners to co-develop custom predictive models using its AI Framework and rich clinical data expertise. The company’s machine learning results has been supported by peer-reviewed research published by internationally recognized health organizations and hospitals. Founded in 2009, Medial EarlySign is headquartered in Israel and the US. For more information, please visit us at earlysign.com. Follow Medial EarlySign on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the non-profit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 134 care sites - including 10 hospital campuses, and Geisinger Health Plan, with 600,000 members in commercial and government plans. The Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,600 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $14 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country.  Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.