Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an automated technique that converts narrative documents into a coded form that is appropriate for computer-based analysis. Capabilities that NLP provides in the context of healthcare include parsing a sentence into its component structures, understanding the medical vocabulary and clinical terms used, disambiguating the context in order to interpret the clinical terms correctly within the broader context of the documentation, and representing the processed information for further use.

Introduction

Health care providers routinely capture large amounts of clinical data at the point of care. As we move into the era of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), much discussion has occurred about how best to enter relevant clinical data. Direct entry of data into the EHR by healthcare providers is important for obtaining the most accurate information. There are several options for data entry that have been considered.

Coded data entry is an approach that may result in the most effective capture of information. Free text entry of data by healthcare providers limits the usefulness of the data, other than for future healthcare encounters. However, coded entry systems, applied at the point of care, may limit the productivity of the user. And, coding systems may be too rigid or succinct to capture the broad details and subtleties of the clinical encounter.

This technology is now maturing and is showing great promise. Proper and judicious use of NLP technology can have a wide array of uses within the healthcare industry. NLP technology is currently being used most commonly in medical records (such as for the detection of adverse events that occur during hospitalizations and clinical conditions described in narrative radiology reports), as well as in coding for billing purposes. It remains unclear, however, whether natural language processors will eventually be able to detect a wide enough range of the complex events of clinical care to play a broader role in the coded data entry process in the EHRs of the future.

References

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4. Hripcsak G, Friedman C, Alerson PO, DuMouchel W, Johnson SB, Clayton PD. Unlocking Clinical Data from Narrative Reports: A Study of Natural Language Processing. Ann Int Med 122(9): 681, 1995.