Mortality prediction of COVID-19 patients using supervised machine learning

Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 are at higher risk of mortality. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have been proposed as a possible strategy for predicting mortality rates among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. This study analyzed various ML algorithms and identified the best model to predict COVID-19 mortality based on demographic, clinical, and laboratory data collected at registration. Data from 4,314 eligible patients (3,384 survivors and 930 who died) was collected from the register of three hospitals in Yogyakarta province, Indonesia, based on the confirmed predictors. Next, ML algorithms were utilized to predict mortality. Finally, the confusion matrix was used to evaluate how effective the models performed. The best five predictors from 26 features were myocardial infarction, SpO2, neutrophil, D dimer, and creatinine. The results indicate that the random forest algorithm showed better performance than other ML algorithms in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, precision, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC), achieving values of 84.15%, 84.0%, 84.1%, 83.9%, and 90.02%, respectively. Implementing ML techniques can accurately predict the mortality rate associated with COVID-19. Therefore, this predictive model can help clinicians and hospitals predict COVID patients with a greater risk of death and effectively target more appropriate treatments.