Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Artif Intell Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2020; 1(1): 30-36
Published online Jul 28, 2020. doi: 10.35712/aig.v1.i1.30
Machine learning better predicts colonoscopy duration
Alexander Joseph Podboy, David Scheinker
Alexander Joseph Podboy, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, United States
David Scheinker, Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University School of Engineering, Stanford, CA 94305, United States
David Scheinker, Department of Preoperative Services, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, Stanford, CA 94304, United States
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper, in regards to conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Institutional review board statement: This research was approved by the institutional review board at Stanford University.
Informed consent statement: The informed consent was waived.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Scheinker D serves as an advisor to Carta Healthcare - a healthcare analytics company. No other potential conflicts of interest or financial support to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Alexander Joseph Podboy, MD, Academic Fellow, Doctor, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Drive, Stanford, CA 94305, United States. alexander.podboy@gmail.com
Received: April 23, 2020
Peer-review started: April 23, 2020
First decision: June 4, 2020
Revised: June 15, 2020
Accepted: June 17, 2020
Article in press: June 17, 2020
Published online: July 28, 2020
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The usefulness of machine learning (ML) for predicting colonoscopy procedure duration has not been examined.

Research motivation

A ML algorithm trained on endoscopic data derived from the Clinical Outcomes Research Initiative database predicted colonoscopy procedure duration more accurately than the currently accepted standard practice and the improvement was greater as the tolerance for error decreased.

Research objectives

The aim of this study was to assess if ML and data available at the time a colonoscopy procedure is scheduled could be used to estimate procedure duration more accurately than the current practice.

Research methods

Total 40168 colonoscopies were collected. ML models predicting procedure duration were developed using data available at time of scheduling. The top performing model was compared against historical practice.

Research results

ML outperformed historical practice with 77.1% to 68.9%, 87.3% to 79.6%, and 92.1% to 86.8% accuracy at 5, 10 and 15 min thresholds, and the most important features of the model were: patient age, procedure year, and the degree year of provider year.

Research conclusions

The use of ML to estimate colonoscopy procedure duration may lead to more accurate scheduling.

Research perspectives

Further study is necessary to examine the implications of the deployment of such a model in a clinical setting, and assess if such models can be used in other gastrointestinal procedures.