Predicting peripheral venous catheter related phlebitis using machine learning (PPML): development and prospective validation of PPML for cardiology inpatients.

Background: Peripheral venous catheter use is a common healthcare practice and carries risk for peripheral venous catheter-related phlebitis (PVCP). The aims of this study were to develop a machine learning model using inpatient hospital data to accurately predict the risk of PVCP and apply this model for early identification to reduce the risk of PVCP in the department of Cardiology.

Methods: A prediction model was developed to estimate the risk of developing PVCP within 3–24 h after introduction during a clinical admission in the department of Cardiology. Data of 107.419 generic hospital clinical admissions between January 2017 and December 2020 were used. For evaluating generalizability of the model, 1.199 clinical admissions between January 2021 and May 2021 from Cardiology were used as validation dataset. For prospectively evaluating clinical utility, 9.885 admissions between May 2021 and December 2022 of Cardiology were used.

Results: Our results demonstrate a strong-performing model with an AUC of 0.89 (CI: 0.87–0.91) based on the test set, and an AUC of 0.72 (CI: 0.66–0.78) based on the validation data. A significant descending trend in the incidence of PVCP in long stay admissions (p-value of 0. 01) was observed during prospective evaluation.

Conclusions: The early identification proves beneficial in reducing the risk of PVCP significantly for patients with long-stay admissions in the Cardiology department.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-025-03158-6.