A Fair Computer Aided Approach in Intensive Care Unit Patient Admission: A Method Research

ABS TRACT In this study, a novel fuzzy logic approach for intensive care unit (ICU) admission has been aimed to be developed which make use of the principles of medical ethics to help the medical staff’s deci- sion and reach a fair priority ranking of patients under coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemics. Determination of the priority rank of candidate patients in justice is very important since the main aim of ICU is to save the patients’ lives as many as possible without any ethical accusations. Several medical risk factors have been reported in the literature that affects ICU admission. Age, SaO2 level and addi- tional diseases, which medical experts considered important risk factors during the COVID-19 pandemic, were taken as medical criteria. Med- ical Ethics Principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence are taken into consideration together with utilitarian ethical strategy of maximizing number of lives and years saved to reach a fair admittance ranking in fuzzy logic software. The output score of ICU admission was conformed to patients’ conditions and expert’s decisions. The software developed has been verified to imitate the decision results of ICU experts who obey the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, maximizing the number of lives and years saved for severe pandemic conditions. However, the final judgment must be left to the responsible doctor. The improved approach can simply be extended to various numbers and types of inputs, ethical viewpoints, and pandemic situations.