Unity Health Toronto
Artificial Intelligence Models to Prevent Delirium
About the Art
A figure reaches upward, head tilted back, one arm outstretched into a swirling field of blue and black, hopeful and vulnerable. The marbled background rises and folds in on itself, fluid forms intertwining without a fixed direction, evoking the disorientation of delirium, a state where time, place, and self can lose their usual footing. A forked stream of red cuts through the swirl, bending upward toward the figure’s raised hand – a thread of clarity within confusion, something to hold onto even mid-disorientation. The piece doesn’t resolve the tension between reaching and being lost. It holds both at once, honouring how disorienting and how human that experience can be.
Original artwork by Aedán Crooke of Surface Impression. No AI was used in generating this artwork.
A 13-hospital initiative uses an AI risk calculator to identify patients at higher risk of delirium and target standardized prevention supports.
Unity Health Toronto pairs an AI delirium-risk tool with model cards, patient materials and staff training so patients, caregivers and clinicians can understand how it works and how it informs care.
Unity Health Toronto’s AIM to Prevent Delirium initiative pairs an AI risk tool with information for clinicians, patients and caregivers.
AIM to Prevent Delirium is a multi-centre quality improvement initiative aimed at reducing hospital-acquired delirium in adult medical inpatients. Delirium is a sudden change in thinking and awareness that can happen during a hospital stay. It is common, harmful and often preventable through supports such as mobility, nutrition, hydration, sleep promotion, cognitive stimulation and family engagement.
The GEMINI research network, coordinated by Unity Health Toronto, developed an AI-based risk calculator using 10 routinely collected clinical variables to predict delirium risk. Teams from 13 hospitals then worked together to design a standardized prevention pathway for patients identified as high risk.
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6 Key Strategies to Prevent Delirium
Cognitive orientation and stimulation
-White board
-Verbal orientation
-Activities
Mobilization
-Access and document baseline
-Communicate and document daily mobility level
-Mobilize at least 3 times a day
Optimize vision and hearing
-Document vision and hearing status
-Ensure devices are clean/working and being used with each interaction
Optimize nutrition and hydration and monitor for constipation
-Assist with meals and check intake
-Beverage at bedside and suggest sips
-Assess for a document BMs and constipation and start laxatives if needed
Promote sleep
-Written and verbal information about relaxation exercises
-Sleep aids
-Adjust light for day/night
-Reduce night noise and interruptions
Engage patient and care partner/family member
-Written and verbal information about delirium
-Encourage regular visits and facilitate virtual visits if needed
The project includes rigorous local validation, research ethics board oversight, privacy-compliant tools and processes, standardized implementation resources, and evaluation of clinical and operational outcomes.
Standardized communication materials include unit posters*, AI model cards describing how the tool was developed and should be used, training resources for front-line staff, and patient-facing materials co-designed with patient and caregiver partners. The project also addresses potential bias by using sociodemographic data from multiple hospitals to assess and mitigate bias in delirium prediction models.
The AI tool is only one part of the project. Model cards, staff resources and patient-facing materials explain what the tool does and how it should be used. They give the people most directly affected by an AI-supported clinical process clearer information about the technology and the safeguards around it.
