Advancing Safe Mechanical Ventilation Using Offline RL With Hybrid Actions and Clinically Aligned Rewards

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Yousuf, Muhammad Hamza, Li, Jason, Vahdati, Sahar, Theilen, Raphael, Wittenstein, Jakob, Lehmann, Jens
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Yousuf, Muhammad Hamza
Li, Jason
Vahdati, Sahar
Theilen, Raphael
Wittenstein, Jakob
Lehmann, Jens
author_facet Yousuf, Muhammad Hamza
Li, Jason
Vahdati, Sahar
Theilen, Raphael
Wittenstein, Jakob
Lehmann, Jens
contents Invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) is a life-sustaining therapy commonly used in the intensive care unit (ICU) for patients with severe and acute conditions. These patients frequently rely on MV for breathing. Given the high risk of death in such cases, optimal MV settings can reduce mortality, minimize ventilator-induced lung injury, shorten ICU stays, and ease the strain on healthcare resources. However, optimizing MV settings remains a complex and error-prone process due to patient-specific variability. While Offline Reinforcement Learning (RL) shows promise for optimizing MV settings, current methods struggle with the hybrid (continuous and discrete) nature of MV settings. Discretizing continuous settings leads to exponential growth in the action space, which limits the number of optimizable settings. Converting the predictions back to continuous can cause a distribution shift, compromising safety and performance. To address this challenge, in the IntelliLung project, we are developing an AI-based approach where we constrain the action space and employ factored action critics. This approach allows us to scale to six optimizable settings compared to 2-3 in previous studies. We adapt SOTA offline RL algorithms to operate directly on hybrid action spaces, avoiding the pitfalls of discretization. We also introduce a clinically grounded reward function based on ventilator-free days and physiological targets. Using multiobjective optimization for reward selection, we show that this leads to a more equitable consideration of all clinically relevant objectives. Notably, we develop a system in close collaboration with healthcare professionals that is aligned with real-world clinical objectives and designed with future deployment in mind.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_14375
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Advancing Safe Mechanical Ventilation Using Offline RL With Hybrid Actions and Clinically Aligned Rewards
Yousuf, Muhammad Hamza
Li, Jason
Vahdati, Sahar
Theilen, Raphael
Wittenstein, Jakob
Lehmann, Jens
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) is a life-sustaining therapy commonly used in the intensive care unit (ICU) for patients with severe and acute conditions. These patients frequently rely on MV for breathing. Given the high risk of death in such cases, optimal MV settings can reduce mortality, minimize ventilator-induced lung injury, shorten ICU stays, and ease the strain on healthcare resources. However, optimizing MV settings remains a complex and error-prone process due to patient-specific variability. While Offline Reinforcement Learning (RL) shows promise for optimizing MV settings, current methods struggle with the hybrid (continuous and discrete) nature of MV settings. Discretizing continuous settings leads to exponential growth in the action space, which limits the number of optimizable settings. Converting the predictions back to continuous can cause a distribution shift, compromising safety and performance. To address this challenge, in the IntelliLung project, we are developing an AI-based approach where we constrain the action space and employ factored action critics. This approach allows us to scale to six optimizable settings compared to 2-3 in previous studies. We adapt SOTA offline RL algorithms to operate directly on hybrid action spaces, avoiding the pitfalls of discretization. We also introduce a clinically grounded reward function based on ventilator-free days and physiological targets. Using multiobjective optimization for reward selection, we show that this leads to a more equitable consideration of all clinically relevant objectives. Notably, we develop a system in close collaboration with healthcare professionals that is aligned with real-world clinical objectives and designed with future deployment in mind.
title Advancing Safe Mechanical Ventilation Using Offline RL With Hybrid Actions and Clinically Aligned Rewards
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14375