About the challenge
Acute deterioration in hospitalized patients can occur rapidly and unpredictably. Hospitals already collect large amounts of information—from manually recorded observations and electronic health records to continuous bedside monitoring and emerging ambient sensing technologies. The challenge is not simply whether AI can predict deterioration. It is determining which data and monitoring approaches can detect meaningful deterioration early enough to improve clinical action.
The 2026 Scope-AI-Thon challenges teams to scope an AI-enabled system for early detection of acute patient deterioration in a hospital setting. Teams will investigate the evidence, identify a clinically meaningful problem, determine the right data and sensing approach, and design how an automated signal should lead to an appropriate clinical response.
The Starting Point: Four Monitoring Approaches
Teams should begin by examining four broad categories of automated deterioration monitoring systems:
· Manually entered data systems: Information deliberately entered by clinical staff, including intermittently recorded vital signs, patient-reported symptoms, and nursing observations.
· Electronic records–based systems: Algorithms using existing EHR data such as laboratory results, medications, clinical notes, demographics, imaging findings, and trends in recorded vital signs.
· Integrated physiological monitoring systems: Continuous or frequent streams from bedside monitors, pulse oximeters, cardiac monitors, ventilators, wearable biosensors, and related devices.
· Novel sensing and ambient technologies: Emerging approaches such as contactless sensing, computer vision, acoustic monitoring, pressure-sensitive beds, and other AI-enabled ambient technologies.
Teams are not expected to assume that the newest or most technically sophisticated approach is best. They should compare what each approach can observe, how quickly it can detect change, what it misses, how difficult it is to integrate into hospital workflow, and what evidence exists that it can improve meaningful patient outcomes.
The Core Scope Question
Which category—or combination of categories—has the greatest potential to reduce adverse outcomes from acute patient deterioration, and what would a credible AI-enabled detection and response system look like?
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