Finding undiagnosed patients with hepatitis C infection: an application of artificial intelligence to patient claims data

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a significant public health challenge with approximately half of the infected population untreated and undiagnosed. In this retrospective study, predictive models were developed to identify undiagnosed HCV patients using longitudinal medical claims linked to prescription data from approximately ten million patients in the United States (US) between 2010 and 2016. Features capturing information on demographics, risk factors, symptoms, treatments and procedures relevant to HCV were extracted from patients’ medical history. Predictive algorithms were developed based on logistic regression, random forests, gradient boosted trees and a stacked ensemble. Descriptive analysis indicated that patients exhibited known symptoms of HCV on average 2–3 years prior to their diagnosis. The precision was at least 95% for all algorithms at low levels of recall (10%). For recall levels >50%, the stacked ensemble performed best with a precision of 97% compared with 87% for the gradient boosted trees and just 31% for the logistic regression. For context, the Center for Disease Control recommends screening in an at-risk sub-population with an estimated HCV prevalence of 2.23%. The artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm presented here has a precision which is substantially higher than the screening rates associated with recommended clinical guidelines, suggesting that AI algorithms have the potential to provide a step change in the effectiveness of HCV screening.