TY - JOUR T1 - Machine Learning for Prediction of Postoperative Surgical Site Infection, Venous Thromboembolism, and Respiratory Failure: A Systematic Review of Model Performance, External Validation, and Clinical Deployment AU - Thomas Andersen AU - Lars Nielsen AU - Mette Sørensen JF - Journal of Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare Systems JO - J. Artif. Intell. Healthc. Syst. SN - 3149-8981 Y1 - 2025 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - 98 N2 - Postoperative complications including SSI (2–20%), VTE (1–5%), and respiratory failure (1–8%) significantly increase morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and readmissions. This systematic review assessed machine learning models predicting these outcomes, their performance, external validation, and clinical deployment. A PRISMA-based search (2017–2024) identified 32 eligible studies. Models such as random forest and XGBoost showed AUROC ranges of 0.70–0.85 for SSI, 0.75–0.90 for VTE (outperforming Caprini scores), and 0.75–0.88 for respiratory failure. However, fewer than 20% of studies included external validation and less than 5% reported clinical deployment. Overall, while machine learning models show strong retrospective performance, limited validation and minimal real-world implementation remain major barriers to clinical translation. UR - https://cirpublications.com/e354131879 ER -