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Weak Supervision for Clinical Phenotyping Under Ambiguity: A Scalable Labeling Theory for Noisy Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records (EHRs) are central to modern healthcare analytics but are often characterized by noise, ambiguity, and missing information, making reliable clinical phenotyping difficult. Clinical phenotypes—observable characteristics derived from patient data—are essential for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment planning. Yet, traditional supervised machine learning methods depend on large volumes of high-quality annotated data that are difficult to obtain at scale.This review examines the role of weak supervision in enabling scalable clinical phenotyping from noisy and heterogeneous EHR data. Weak supervision frameworks generate labels using heuristic rules, knowledge-based signals, or programmatic labeling functions, allowing models to learn from large datasets without extensive expert annotation. These approaches help address challenges such as inconsistent terminology, missing values, and temporal irregularities commonly found in clinical records.We synthesize recent developments in scalable phenotyping systems that integrate machine learning architectures, probabilistic labeling strategies, and multimodal data representations to extract meaningful patterns from imperfect clinical data. The review also outlines a systems-level perspective on healthcare analytics pipelines, covering data ingestion, model training under label uncertainty, deployment in clinical environments, and governance considerations for responsible AI integration.Overall, weak supervision emerges as a practical strategy for transforming noisy EHR data into usable clinical intelligence, enabling more scalable and trustworthy analytics for healthcare decision support.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Review | Open access | 10 January 2021 | Article: 4

Predictive Analytics Model for Estimating Same-Day Hospital Discharge Readiness Using Morning Laboratory Results, Active Medication Orders, Vital Sign Stability, Mobility Documentation, and Pending Consultation Status
Hospital discharge delays are costly, disrupt inpatient capacity, and expose patients to avoidable iatrogenic harm. Early identification of patients likely to be ready for discharge could improve patient flow and reduce operational bottlenecks. Current discharge decisions often rely on subjective judgment, fragmented documentation, and sequential review by multiple clinical teams. No single tool routinely integrates the morning snapshot of clinical readiness. This article proposes a predictive model that estimates the probability of same-day discharge readiness by 9 am. The model uses morning laboratory results, active medication orders, vital sign stability, mobility documentation, and pending consultation status. The proposed approach is a supervised classification model using gradient-boosted trees trained on historical inpatient encounters. Features would be assembled from electronic health record data available before morning rounds. Conceptually, the model would generate a calibrated discharge readiness list for clinical review. This list could help care teams focus on borderline patients and support bed-management forecasting. The model could accelerate discharge throughput while maintaining safety by surfacing hidden readiness signals. It is intended to complement, not replace, clinical judgment.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 25 February 2022 | Article: 69

Natural Language Processing Model for Detecting Inconsistencies between Clinical Notes, Problem Lists, Medication Orders, and Billing Codes in Electronic Health Records
Clinical notes, problem lists, medication orders, and billing codes are core components of the electronic health record. When these components conflict, the record may become less reliable for care delivery, quality measurement, and reimbursement. Current inconsistency detection is largely manual, episodic, and dependent on documentation audits. This approach is difficult to scale across encounters, specialties, and longitudinal records. This article proposes a deep learning NLP model for detecting contradictions among clinical notes, problem lists, medication orders, and billing codes. The goal is to support continuous documentation integrity surveillance. The proposed model uses transformer-based encoders for clinical text and embedding layers for structured coded fields. Cross-attention mechanisms align concepts across EHR modules before classifying consistency relationships. Conceptually, the model could surface discrepancies such as a diagnosis documented in a note but absent from the problem list, or a billing code unsupported by physician documentation. Its output would include an inconsistency category and an interpretable explanation for clinician review. A unified NLP model for cross-module inconsistency detection could improve EHR trustworthiness, documentation quality, and clinical audit workflows. Such a system should be evaluated prospectively before operational deployment.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 25 February 2023 | Article: 74

Machine Learning for Hospital Length-of-Stay Prediction: A Systematic Review of Electronic Health Record Features, Model Architectures, Validation Methods, and Operational Implementation Outcomes
Hospital length-of-stay is a central operational metric for inpatient capacity planning, discharge coordination, and resource allocation. Accurate prediction remains difficult because patient trajectories are heterogeneous, nonlinear, and shaped by evolving clinical events during admission. Traditional statistical models often have limited flexibility for high-dimensional and sequential electronic health record data. Across the literature, there is no settled consensus regarding optimal model architecture, feature representation, validation design, or clinical implementation strategy. This systematic review synthesizes machine learning approaches for hospital length-of-stay prediction published from 2017 to 2022. It focuses on EHR feature types, model architectures, validation methods, interpretability strategies, and reported operational outcomes. A structured review of peer-reviewed literature was conducted using targeted search strings related to machine learning, deep learning, electronic health records, discharge prediction, and hospital length-of-stay. The review included studies across emergency, inpatient, surgical, pediatric, cardiovascular, and intensive care settings. The literature suggests that gradient boosting, random forest, ensemble learning, and recurrent neural networks are common approaches for LOS prediction. However, external validation remains uncommon, prediction horizons vary widely, and operational implementation outcomes are reported less consistently than model development results. Future research should prioritize external validation, prospective implementation studies, standardized outcome definitions, and transparent reporting of workflow barriers. Shared benchmarking datasets and multi-center validation consortia would strengthen comparability across LOS prediction studies.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Review | Open access | 25 February 2023 | Article: 75

Graph-Based Machine Learning Model for Predicting Care Coordination Failures Using Referral Networks, Follow-Up Completion Status, Patient Message Logs, Specialty Access Delays, and Provider Communication Patterns
Care coordination failures include missed referrals, lost follow-ups, fragmented communication, and incomplete transitions between primary and specialty care. These failures can delay diagnosis, weaken continuity, and increase avoidable utilisation. Existing detection approaches often depend on manual review, retrospective audits, or simple rule-based flags. Such approaches are poorly suited to capture the relational complexity of patient, provider, referral, messaging, and encounter networks. This article develops a conceptual graph-based machine learning model for predicting care coordination failures. The model represents patient–provider referral networks enriched with follow-up status, patient message activity, specialty access delays, and provider communication patterns. The proposed approach uses a heterogeneous graph neural network in which patients and providers are nodes. Referral, encounter, and messaging relationships are represented as edges, while node and edge features encode follow-up adherence, message frequency, wait-time signals, and communication context. Conceptually, the model would identify high-risk referral edges that combine delayed access, incomplete follow-up, weak messaging activity, or limited provider communication. These predictions would support coordinator review before a referral becomes a documented care gap. A graph-based model could shift care coordination from reactive tracking toward predictive prevention. By identifying fragile referral relationships early, it could support more timely outreach and safer continuity of care.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 20 July 2023 | Article: 84

Sequence Learning Model for Predicting Specialist Consultation Completion Delays Using Consultation Type, Patient Location, Specialty Workload, Ordering Service, Communication Logs, and Escalation History
Specialist consultation delays are a pervasive source of prolonged inpatient stays and disrupted throughput. They remain difficult to anticipate because delay risk emerges across ordering, communication, workload, and completion steps. A predictive model could support earlier recognition of consults likely to exceed expected completion windows. Existing consultation monitoring often depends on retrospective reports, manual tracking, or informal escalation. These approaches miss the opportunity to intervene while the consultation is still unfolding. A real-time model could convert consult workflow events into actionable delay forecasts. This article proposes a sequence learning model that predicts the probability of specialist consultation completion delay at the time of order entry. The model would refine this probability after each subsequent event, including messages, assignment, escalation, note drafting, and completion. The objective is conceptual model development rather than experimental evaluation. The proposed approach uses an LSTM-, GRU-, or Transformer-based architecture to ingest consultation milestones and static context. Inputs include consultation type, patient location, ordering service, specialty workload, communication logs, and escalation history. The output is a dynamically updated delay probability intended for consult workflow management. Conceptually, the model would identify high-risk consults early, such as a complex weekend consultation for a critically ill patient with no timely response from an overloaded service. It would be expected to support targeted escalation, workload redistribution, and proactive communication. No empirical performance claims are made. A sequence learning model could help hospitals move from passive consultation tracking to proactive delay management. By combining temporal workflow events with operational context, the model could support more timely specialist input and reduce avoidable length-of-stay pressure. Future evaluation should focus on safety, fairness, usability, and workflow impact.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 25 February 2024 | Article: 87

Interpretable Machine Learning Model for Detecting Clinical Pathway Deviations in Hospitalized Patients Using Order Sequences, Vital Sign Trends, Laboratory Monitoring Frequency, and Provider Decision Patterns
Clinical pathways are designed to standardize inpatient care for common conditions while allowing clinically justified individualization. Deviations from these pathways are frequent and may reflect either appropriate adaptation to patient complexity or potentially harmful departure from evidence-informed practice. Current deviation detection often depends on retrospective audit, static compliance rules, or aggregate dashboards. These approaches can miss subtle temporal drift in care delivery and rarely explain why a specific patient trajectory diverged from the expected pathway. This article proposes an interpretable machine learning model for detecting clinical pathway deviations in hospitalized patients. The model focuses on order sequences, vital sign trends, laboratory monitoring frequency, and provider decision patterns as dynamic indicators of care-process variation. Conceptually, the model would compare each patient’s evolving care trajectory with learned expected pathways using sequence-comparison and outlier-detection logic. SHAP-based or attention-informed explanations would identify the specific features responsible for a deviation flag, such as delayed monitoring, omitted follow-up testing, or unusual ordering behavior. The proposed model could detect when a patient’s care trajectory diverges from an expected pathway and provide a transparent rationale for review. For example, it could flag a missing repeat troponin, a delayed antibiotic escalation, or a laboratory monitoring pattern inconsistent with the patient’s clinical state. An interpretable pathway-deviation model could shift quality monitoring from manual, sample-based review toward continuous and transparent pathway surveillance. Such a system would support real-time clinical awareness, structured audit, and organizational learning.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 20 July 2024 | Article: 98

Sequence Learning Model for Predicting Repeat Diagnostic Imaging Orders Using Prior Imaging History, Symptom Documentation, Specialist Recommendations, Ordering Physician Behavior, and Recent Test Results
Repeat diagnostic imaging is a major driver of healthcare costs, radiation exposure, workflow burden, and downstream follow-up from incidental findings. Its occurrence often follows recognizable patterns shaped by prior imaging, persistent symptoms, specialist advice, recent results, and provider ordering habits. Current utilization management tools often respond after an imaging order has already been placed or rely on static appropriateness rules. They therefore miss opportunities to anticipate repeat ordering risk before the clinician reaches the final order-entry step. This manuscript proposes a sequence learning model that could predict the probability of a repeat diagnostic imaging order within a future clinical window. The model would integrate prior imaging history, symptom documentation, specialist recommendations, ordering physician behavior, and recent test results. The conceptual model would use a recurrent neural network or Transformer encoder to process temporally ordered imaging and clinical events. Structured radiology information system data would be combined with natural language processing features from clinical notes and consult documentation, physician-level ordering context, and recent laboratory or imaging-result signals. Conceptually, the model would forecast whether a repeat CT, MRI, ultrasound, or related diagnostic imaging order is likely to occur. It would also identify major contextual drivers so that the prediction could support pre-emptive review, alternative care suggestions, or guideline-aligned follow-up. A sequence learning model for repeat imaging prediction could function as a safety-and-value layer within radiology workflow. It could reduce unsupported imaging variation while preserving clinically indicated follow-up and surveillance.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 25 February 2025 | Article: 101

Multimodal Foundation Model for Predicting Care Delivery Delays Using Electronic Health Record Events, Operational Logs, Staff Assignments, Patient Messages, Facility Capacity Indicators, and Service Queue Data
Care delivery delays arise from asynchronous interactions among clinical decisions, operational constraints, staffing patterns, facility capacity, and patient communication. These delays are rarely represented within a single predictive framework that captures the hospital as a dynamic multimodal system. Existing delay prediction models often focus on one operational endpoint, such as discharge timing, transport coordination, or procedure scheduling. Such models may require extensive hand-engineered features and may not generalize across units, services, or delay types. This article proposes a conceptual multimodal foundation model for predicting care delivery delays using electronic health record events, operational logs, staff assignments, patient messages, facility capacity indicators, and service queue data. The goal is to describe a reusable model backbone that could support multiple downstream operational prediction tasks. The proposed model would use a transformer-based architecture pre-trained through self-supervised learning over heterogeneous temporal hospital data. Task-specific prediction heads could then be fine-tuned for medication delays, procedure delays, discharge delays, transport delays, and broader care progression bottlenecks. Conceptually, the model would learn a holistic representation of clinical workflow, operational pressure, staffing context, patient communication burden, and service demand. It would be expected to produce dynamic delay risk estimates that adapt to changing hospital conditions and tolerate incomplete modality availability. A multimodal foundation model could unify delay prediction across multiple operational domains. Such an approach may support proactive hospital management by transforming fragmented data streams into shared, contextualized representations of care delivery risk.
Journal of Health Informatics and Digital Systems
Original Research | Open access | 25 February 2026 | Article: 126
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AI-driven Diagnostics Artificial Intelligence in Health Informatics Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Big Data in Healthcare Clinical Data Mining Clinical Decision Support Systems Clinical Informatics Computer Vision Connected Health Systems Deep Learning Digital Health Digital Healthcare Innovation Digital Transformation in Healthcare Electronic Health Records Ethical AI in Healthcare Explainable AI Health Data Analytics Health Data Privacy Health Informatics Health Information Management Health Information Systems Health System Optimization Health Technology Assessment Healthcare Data Science Healthcare Informatics Healthcare Information Security Healthcare Management Healthcare Management Information Systems Intelligent Medical Systems Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Interoperability in Healthcare Systems Machine Learning Medical Data Analytics Medical Data Management Medical Imaging Mobile Health (mHealth) Natural Language Processing Precision Medicine Predictive Analytics Remote Patient Monitoring Smart Healthcare Systems Telemedicine Wearable Health Technologies e-Health




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