A Multimodal Deep Learning Ensemble Framework for Building a Spine Surgery Triage System

Spinal radiology reports and physician-completed questionnaires serve as crucial resources for medical decision-making for patients experiencing low back and neck pain. However, due to the time-consuming nature of this process, individuals with severe conditions may experience a deterioration in their health before receiving professional care. In this work, we propose an ensemble framework built on top of pre-trained BERT-based models which can classify patients on their need for surgery given their different data modalities including radiology reports and questionnaires. Our results demonstrate that our approach exceeds previous studies, effectively integrating information from multiple data modalities and serving as a valuable tool to assist physicians in decision making.