A Learning Health-Care System for Improving Renal Health Services in Peru Using Data Analytics

Abstract

The health sector around the world faces the continuous challenge of improving the services provided to patients. Therefore, digital transformation in health services plays a key role in integrating new technologies such as artificial intelligence. However, the health system in Peru has not yet taken the big step towards digitising its services, currently ranking 71st according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This article proposes a learning health system for the management and monitoring of private health services in Peru based on the three key components of intelligent health care: (1) a health data platform (HDP); (2) intelligent technologies (IT); and (3) an intelligent health care suite (HIS). The solution consists of four layers: (1) data source, (2) data warehousing, (3) data analytics, and (4) visualization. In layer 1, all data sources are selected to create a database. The proposed learning health system is built, and the data storage is executed through the extract, transform and load (ETL) process in layer 2. In layer 3, the Kaggle dataset and the decision tree (DT) and random forest (RF) algorithms are used to predict the diagnosis of disease, resulting in the RF algorithm having the best performance. Finally, in layer 4, the intelligent health-care suite dashboards and interfaces are designed. The proposed system was applied in a clinic focused on preventing chronic kidney disease. A total of 100 patients and six kidney health experts participated. The results proved that the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease by the learning health system had a low error rate in positive diagnoses (err = 1.12%). Additionally, it was demonstrated that experts were “satisfied” with the dashboards and interfaces of the intelligent health-care suite as well as the quality of the learning health system.