Emergency department use and Artificial Intelligence in Pelotas: design and baseline results

OBJETIVO: To describe the initial baseline results of a population-based study, as well as a protocol in order to evaluate the performance of different machine learning algorithms with the objective of predicting the demand for urgent and emergency services in a representative sample of adults from the urban area of Pelotas, Southern Brazil. METHODS: The study is entitled “Emergency department use and Artificial Intelligence in PELOTAS (RS) (EAI PELOTAS)” (https://wp.ufpel.edu.br/eaipelotas/). Between September and December 2021, a baseline was carried out with participants. A follow-up was planned to be conducted after 12 months in order to assess the use of urgent and emergency services in the last year. Afterwards, machine learning algorithms will be tested to predict the use of urgent and emergency services over one year. RESULTS: In total, 5,722 participants answered the survey, mostly females (66.8%), with an average age of 50.3 years. The mean number of household people was 2.6. Most of the sample has white skin color and incomplete elementary school or less. Around 30% of the sample has obesity, 14% diabetes, and 39% hypertension. CONCLUSION: The present paper presented a protocol describing the steps that were and will be taken to produce a model capable of predicting the demand for urgent and emergency services in one year among residents of Pelotas, in Rio Grande do Sul state.