UTHealth, Cerner Opens Data Science Challenge Focused on Sepsis

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Biomedical informatics (SBMI) with Cerner has announced the DII National Data Science Challenge. Leveraging Cerner Health Facts® and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud support, this year’s challenge will focus on predictive accuracy for two tasks (tracks): sepsis onset and sepsis mortality.  The most innovative solution (not necessarily the one with the best performance) to the above referenced tasks constitutes a third track for the Challenge.

 2019 DII National Data Science Challenge Overview

The challenge calls for students, faculty, and industry leaders to help solve from some of health care’s biggest challenges by using machine learning to analyze de-identified data. Combining artificial intelligence and machine-learning with information provided from EHRs, revenue claims, social determinants of health and other sources can work to improve patient safety and quality of care.

Use Cases

The early identification of sepsis cases is the difference between life and death for the patient, and is mission-critical to healthcare providers re: quality and cost; also, this use case is well supported by Cerner Health Facts data.

Thirty teams—representing MIT, Duke University, Emory University, and UT Austin, among other institutions—are participating in this year’s challenge. Solutions are due Sept. 12.

Judging Entries

The Host will select a panel of Judges to validate and score the submissions and their decisions are final and binding. The Judges will review all eligible submissions received and select three winners based on the following aspects of the Challenge:

For the first two tracks of the sepsis use case (onset prediction and mortality), algorithms that have the highest discrimination power (e.g., Area Under ROC curve), as determined through test data by the Judges.

For the third track, the most innovative solution, as determined by the Judges, will be selected.

Prizes

The following prizes will be awarded by the Host/Sponsor to the winning Challenge Participants:

Track 1, Sepsis Onset Prediction: $7,500

Track 2, Sepsis Mortality Prediction: $7,500

Track 3, Innovation (the most innovative solution derived from either Track 1 or Track 2): $7,500