A Learn-to-Rank Approach to Medicine Selection for Patient Treatments

Maher Sami Farouqa, Mohammad Azzeh
Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management  •  Volume 19  •  2024  •  pp. 030

This research utilized a learn-to-rank algorithm to provide medical recommendations to prescribers. The algorithm has been utilized in other domains, such as information retrieval and recommender systems.

Ranking the possible medical treatments according to diagnoses of the medical cases is very beneficial for doctors, especially during the coding process.

We developed two deep learning pointwise learn-to-rank models within one prediction pipeline: one for predicting the top possible active ingredients from disease features, the other for ranking actual medicines codes from diseases and the ingredients features.

A new learn-to-rank deep learning model has been developed to rank medical procedures based on datasets collected from insurance companies.

We ran 18 cross-validation trials on a confidential dataset from an insurance company. We obtained an average normalized discounted cumulative gain (NDCG@8) of 74% with a 5% standard deviation as a result of all 18 experiments. Our approach outperformed a known approach used in the information retrieval domain in which data is represented in LibSVM format. Then, we ran the same trials using three learn-to-rank models – pointwise, pairwise, and listwise – which yielded average NDCG@8 of 71%, 72%, and 72%, respectively.

The proposed model provides an insightful approach to helping to manage the patient’s treatment process.

This research lays the groundwork for exploring various applications of data science techniques and machine learning algorithms in the medical field. Future studies should focus on the significant potential of learn-to-rank algorithms across different medical domains, including their use in cost-effectiveness models. Emphasizing these algorithms could enhance decision-making processes and optimize resource allocation in healthcare settings.

This will help insurance companies and end users reduce the cost associated with patient treatment. It also helps doctors to choose the best procedure and medicines for their patients.

Future research is required to investigate the impact of medicine data at a granular level.

learn to rank, medicine ranking, decision making
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