Prescreening and Triage of COVID-19 Patients Through Chest X-Ray Images Using Deep Learning Model

Abstract

Deep learning models deliver a fast diagnosis during triage prescreening for COVID-19 patients, reducing waiting time for hospital admission during health emergency scenarios. The Ministry of health and family welfare government of India provides guidelines from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for triage requirements and emergency response with faster allotment of oxygen beds for COVID-19 patients requiring immediate treatment in Tamil Nadu, India. A combination of pretrained models provides a faster screening rate and finds patients with severe lung infections who need to be attended to and allotted oxygen beds. Deep learning (DL) algorithms need to be accurate in triaging undifferentiated patients entering the emergency care system (ECS). The major goal of this work is to analyze the accuracy of machine learning approaches in their application to triage the acuity of patients arriving in the ECS. The proposed triage model has an accuracy of 93% in classifying COVID/non-COVID patients. The proposed triage DL model effectively reduces the time for the triage procedure and streamlines screening and allocation of beds for patients with high risk.