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After Rory’s death, the Stauntons started the nonprofit End Sepsis to ensure that no other family would have to go through their pain. Because of their efforts, New York State mandated that hospitals develop sepsis protocols, and the CDC declared sepsis a medical emergency. But none of this will ever bring back Rory, Ciaran Staunton said: “We will never be happy again.”

This research is personal for Saria as well. Almost a decade ago, her nephew died of sepsis. By the time it was discovered, there was nothing his doctors could do. “It all happened too quickly, and we lost him,” she said. That’s precisely why early detection is so important. Life and death can be mere minutes away. “Last year, we flew helicopters on Mars,” Saria said, “but we’re still freaking killing patients every day.”

The Epic Sepsis Model, a widely used algorithm that scans through electronic records but doesn’t use machine learning, is a cautionary example here, according to David Bates, chief of general internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He explained how the model was developed at a couple of hospitals with promising results before being deployed at hundreds others. The model then deteriorated, identifying only 33 percent of patients with sepsis and having a 88 percent false positive rate. “You can’t really predict how much the performance is going to degrade,” Bates said, “without actually going and looking.”

The studies also have a conflict of interest: Saria is entitled to revenue distribution from TREWS, as is Johns Hopkins.

Despite the potential drawbacks, Orlaith Staunton, Rory’s mother, told Undark that TREWS could have saved her son’s life. “There was complete breakdown in my son’s situation,” she said, with none of his clinicians considering sepsis until it was too late. An early warning system that alerted them about the condition, she added, “would make the world of difference.”

Shariat also worries that the sheer volume of alerts, with about two out of three being false positives, might still contribute to alert fatigue — and potentially overtreatment with fluids and antibiotics, which can lead to serious medical complications like pulmonary edema and antibiotic resistance. Saria acknowledged that TREWS’ false positive rate, while lower than existing electronic health record systems, could certainly improve, but said it will always be critical for clinicians to continue to use their own judgment.

The studies also have a conflict of interest: Saria is entitled to revenue distribution from TREWS, as is Johns Hopkins. “If this goes primetime and they sell it to every hospital, there’s so much money,” Shariat said. “It’s billions and billions of dollars.”

Saria maintained that these studies went through rigorous internal and external review processes to manage conflicts of interest and that the vast majority of study authors don’t have a financial stake in this research. Regardless, Shariat said it will be crucial to have independent validation to confirm these findings and ensure the system is truly generalizable.