Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Health Technology Implementation
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1462751

A Roadmap to Implementing Machine Learning in Healthcare: from Concept to Practice

Provisionally accepted
Adam Paul Yan Adam Paul Yan 1,2Lin Lawrence Guo Lin Lawrence Guo 2Jiro Inoue Jiro Inoue 2Santiago Eduardo Arciniegas Santiago Eduardo Arciniegas 2Emily Vettese Emily Vettese 2Agata Wolochacz Agata Wolochacz 2Nicole Crellin-Parsons Nicole Crellin-Parsons 2Brandon Purves Brandon Purves 3Steven Wallace Steven Wallace 3Azaz Patel Azaz Patel 3Medhat Roshdi Medhat Roshdi 3Karim Jessa Karim Jessa 3,4Bren Cardiff Bren Cardiff 3Lillian Sung Lillian Sung 1,2,3*
  • 1 Division of Haematology/Oncology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
  • 2 Program in Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
  • 3 Information Management Technology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
  • 4 Department of Emergency Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The adoption of machine learning (ML) has been slow within the healthcare setting. We launched Pediatric Real-world Evaluative Data sciences for Clinical Transformation (PREDICT) at a pediatric hospital. Its goal was to develop, deploy, evaluate and maintain clinical ML models to improve pediatric patient outcomes using electronic health records data.To provide examples from the PREDICT experience illustrating how common challenges with clinical ML deployment were addressed.We present common challenges in developing and deploying models in healthcare related to the following: identify clinical scenarios, establish data infrastructure and utilization, create machine learning operations and integrate into clinical workflows.We show examples of how these challenges were overcome and provide suggestions for pragmatic solutions while maintaining best practices.Discussion: These approaches will require refinement over time as the number of deployments and experience increase.

    Keywords: machine learning, Clinical prediction models, implementation, Clinical utilization, Electronic Health Records

    Received: 10 Jul 2024; Accepted: 06 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yan, Guo, Inoue, Arciniegas, Vettese, Wolochacz, Crellin-Parsons, Purves, Wallace, Patel, Roshdi, Jessa, Cardiff and Sung. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lillian Sung, Division of Haematology/Oncology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.