Word2vec Word Embedding-Based Artificial Intelligence Model in the Triage of Patients with Suspected Diagnosis of Major Ischemic Stroke: A Feasibility Study

Background: The possible benefits of using semantic language models in the early diagnosis of major ischemic stroke (MIS) based on artificial intelligence (AI) are still underestimated. The present study strives to assay the feasibility of the word2vec word embedding-based model in decreasing the risk of false negatives during the triage of patients with suspected MIS in the emergency department (ED). Methods: The main ICD-9 codes related to MIS were used for the 7-year retrospective data collection of patients managed at the ED with a suspected diagnosis of stroke. The data underwent “tokenization” and “lemmatization”. The word2vec word-embedding algorithm was used for text data vectorization. Results: Out of 648 MIS, the word2vec algorithm successfully identified 83.9% of them, with an area under the curve of 93.1%. Conclusions: Natural language processing (NLP)-based models in triage have the potential to improve the early detection of MIS and to actively support the clinical staff.