SELLERSVILLE PA – Hospitals owned by St. Luke’s University Health Network are using a form of artificial intelligence (AI) to help save patient lives, it reports.
Medical-surgery units at all 16 St. Luke’s hospital campuses, including St. Luke’s Grand View in Sellersville PA, now rely on what the organization described Thursday (Nov. 20, 2025) as “a proprietary artificial intelligence tool.” The health network says it can “predict, identify and rapidly address the needs of its admitted or under-observation patients.”
The goal, St. Luke’s says, is to reduce “unanticipated transfers” to its intensive care units. The benefits hopefully include fewer incidents of heart attacks, health complications, and death.
The tool, called the “Epic Deterioration Index,” is said to collect data from hospital patients “every second of every day, awake or sleeping.” It monitors patients’ heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, lab work, age, and nursing documentation in real time.
That information is transmitted to a St. Luke’s “virtual response center.” Registered nurses there can then determine if a patient needs immediate assistance, and can alert other nurses, supervisors, or rapid response teams.
Top photo by Sumaid pal Singh Bakshi on Unsplash+, used under license
Award-Winning AI
The Epic Deterioration Index, which links with a hospital’s electronic health records system, was “widely used” to assess patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, a March 2021 study noted. A December 2022 article reported the tool encouraged clinicians “to take a proactive approach to identify deteriorating patients.”
Most recently, St. Luke’s implementation of the tool earned a 2025 award from The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.
The network envisions use of the index as part of a “broader AI strategy.” St. Luke believes it “exemplifies how machine learning can be responsibly integrated into care delivery, improving outcomes while still preserving and enhancing clinician judgment.”
St. Luke’s operates outpatient facilities and other offices in Pennsburg and Harleysville PA.
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