Advanced calibration of mortality prediction on cardiovascular disease using feature-based artificial neural network

• Developed a novel neural network for CVD mortality prediction with clinical data. • Proposed a more time-efficient feature-based artificial neural network (ANN). • Investigated feature representation to improve ANN for practical guideline. • Boosted calibration of neural networks and enabled model to make less mistakes. • Made model updates in clinical context more accessible, flexible and reliable. Cardiovascular (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide and a significant public health concern. Therefore, its mortality prediction is crucial to many existing treatment guidelines. Medical claims data can be used to accurately foresee the health outcomes of patients contracting to a variety of diseases. Many machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning artificial neural networks, can predict mortality rate among patients with CVD using clinical data. Calibration of probabilistic prediction is essential for precise medical interventions as it indicates how well a model’s output matches the probability of the event. However, deep learning neural networks are poorly calibrated. Through experiments, we observe that feature representation is an important factor influencing calibration. This paper proposes a novel feature-based deep learning neural network framework to predict the mortality rate among patients with CVD. Our focus is to present a comprehensive study to achieve advanced performance calibration of mortality prediction on CVD in leveraging deep learning architecture and feature representations. Our study demonstrates that the proposed feature-based neural network framework integrated with Principal Component Analysis or Autoencoders significantly reduces training time and boosts calibration, making model updates in clinical context more flexible and decision-making in medical prevention more reliable.