STAT+: In the battle of sepsis algorithms, performance alone doesn’t predict victory

STAT PlusHealth tech In the battle of sepsis algorithms, performance alone doesn’t predict victory To succeed, startups must overcome Epic’s ‘stranglehold’ on hospital AI adoption Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Katie PalmerMay 12, 2026 Health Tech Correspondent Katie Palmer[email protected]Katie Palmer covers telehealth, clinical artificial intelligence, and the health data economy — with an emphasis on the impacts of digital health care for patients, providers, and businesses. You can reach Katie on Signal at palmer.01. You’re reading Part 2 of Paying for AI, a series examining how new clinical artificial intelligence tools influence the affordability of health care and patients’ long-term health.

Read Part 1 here. Five years ago, the bottom fell out of sepsis prediction software. Hundreds of hospitals had adopted an algorithm from electronic health record company Epic that promised to alert physicians to predicted cases of sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection that kills more than 350,000 people in the United States every year.

The AI was a technical flop. Despite its results on paper, the technology failed to perform in the real world, and sent so many alerts that doctors tuned them out or hospitals turned them off. Advertisement Half a decade on, new sepsis models are hitting the scene.

Epic released a retooled version of its own algorithm. Startups are testing their models in health systems. A team uses large language models to mine clinical notes for signs of sepsis.

And on Tuesday, a sepsis flagging device from Bayesian Health, with origins at Johns Hopkins, announced it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. STAT+ Exclusive Story Already have an account? Log in This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers Unlock this article — and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting health care — by subscribing to STAT+.

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2-10 Users $300 Annually per user $300/year Get Started $300 Annually per user View All Plans To read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+. Subscribe Log In Artificial intelligence, health tech, STAT+ Submit a correction requestReprints Katie Palmer Health Tech Correspondent Katie Palmer covers telehealth, clinical artificial intelligence, and the health data economy — with an emphasis on the impacts of digital health care for patients, providers, and businesses. You can reach Katie on Signal at palmer.01.

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