# Safety Promotion through Early Event Detection in the Elderly (SPEEDe)

> **NIH NIH R01** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $705,459

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Adverse events (AEs) – harm to patients that results from medical care – affect as many as
13.5% of hospitalized patients; half of these AEs are preventable and AEs particularly affect the
elderly. AEs are notoriously difficult to measure accurately. A variety of paper and electronic
trigger tools have been developed to identify AEs; however, their positive predictive value (PPV)
is low, requiting subsequent, time-intensive manual chart review to accurately measure AEs.
In the proposed project, we will use innovative, state-of-the-art machine interactive learning
(IML) techniques to refine existing AE triggers, improving their accuracy substantially. We will
also develop a novel AE Explorer to speed review of possible AEs, as well as an innovative
package of predictive analytics tools and methods to measure and detect them. Our approach
combines and compares expert-driven improvement with the most recent IML techniques to
make triggers more accurate, with the ultimate goal of creating triggers that are accurate
enough to stand in as proxies for actual measurement of harm. We call our approach Safety
Promotion through Early Event Detection in the Elderly, or SPEEDe.
Our team of accomplished machine learning, patient safety, risk management, AE detection,
geriatric medicine and trigger tool experts will work together to carry out the specific aims of this
project: (1) prototype and rapidly iterate a trigger review dashboard (the Adverse Event
Explorer) using a user-centered design process, (2) develop and evaluate novel Interactive
Machine Learning approaches for more efficient and accurate adverse event chart review and
trigger refinement, and (3) Integrate Interactive Machine Learning into the Adverse Event
Explorer and evaluate it prospectively in a clinical setting.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10093288
- **Project number:** 7R01AG062499-02
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** ADAM T WRIGHT
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $705,459
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2020-03-01 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10093288

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10093288, Safety Promotion through Early Event Detection in the Elderly (SPEEDe) (7R01AG062499-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10093288. Licensed CC0.

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