A Hierarchical Machine Learning-Based Framework for Clinical Decision Support in Foot Orthosis Prescription:...

Foot orthosis prescription is a complex clinical decision-making process that involves selecting and combining multiple structural, functional, and material components based on heterogeneous biomechanical information. In routine outpatient practice, detailed biomechanical assessments are often incomplete, creating substantial variability in prescription decisions, and limiting the applicability of conventional machine learning (ML) models that assume fixed feature availability.

This study aimed to develop and evaluate a hierarchical ML-based clinical decision support framework for foot orthosis prescription that accommodates variable clinical information availability, supports multilabel prescription decisions, and incorporates safety-oriented recommendation strategies for routine outpatient practice.

A retrospective observational study was conducted using 6462 visit-level clinical encounters collected from a single institution between 2015 and 2020. Orthotic prescription was formulated as a multilabel prediction task involving 15 prescription components. A hierarchical modeling framework was implemented, consisting of a basic decision level using routinely available demographic and alignment variables, and an advanced level incorporating subtalar joint inversion and eversion range of motion measurements when available. Tree-based gradient boosting models were evaluated using 5-fold stratified grouped cross-validation. Model performance was assessed using component-wise area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC), positive predictive value (PPV), macro-averaged Hamming loss, Top-K hit, and coverage rates based on probabilities calibrated using internal grouped Platt scaling, and component-specific safety-oriented threshold calibration.

The hierarchical models demonstrated consistent predictive performance across both decision levels, although precision-recall-based analyses indicated greater variability for low-prevalence prescription components. The Level 4 and Level 8 models achieved mean component-wise AUROC values of 0.792 and 0.816, respectively, with macro-averaged Hamming loss of 0.113 and 0.111. Using component-specific Platt scaling within the 5-fold stratified grouped cross-validation framework, Top-K analysis demonstrated a Top-1 hit rate of 86.7% and a Top-3 hit rate of 97.4%. When all prescribed components were considered, Top-K coverage reached 71.7% at Top-3 and increased to 97.0% at Top-8. Safety-oriented threshold calibration was performed separately for each prescription component, selecting the threshold that achieved the highest sensitivity while maintaining a specificity of at least 95%. Under this component-specific calibration strategy, the aggregated operating profile achieved a microaveraged specificity of 96.00% with a microaveraged sensitivity of 28.71%. Age-stratified analyses revealed distinct feature-importance patterns between pediatric and adult populations.

The proposed hierarchical clinical decision support framework supported multicomponent foot orthosis prescription under variable information availability commonly encountered in outpatient practice. By generating ranked component-wise recommendations and high-confidence threshold-calibrated outputs, the framework may support clinician decision-making in routine orthotic practice. Further prospective validation will be required to determine its clinical utility.