Suchi Saria, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and ICM core faculty member, is developing computer programs that analyze existing medical information to assist physicians to prevent organ failure in patients. Last year, in findings reported in Science Translational Medicine with computer science doctoral student Katharine Henry and critical care specialist David Hager, Dr. Saria described an algorithm called the targeted real-time early warning score—TREWScore— to measure the risk of a suspected infection developing into septic shock. It was based on information from the electronic health records of 16,234 patients admitted to intensive care units at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2001 to 2007.

The algorithm correctly predicted septic shock in 85 percent of cases, without increasing the false positive rate from screening methods that are common now. More than two-thirds of the time, the method was able to predict septic shock before any organ dysfunction.

Saria’s work is so promising that Johns Hopkins is now piloting a real-time surveillance tool using this method at Howard County General Hospital. Dr. Saria was featured for her groundbreaking research in the Winter 2017 edition of JHU Engineering Magazine.