Open Access
Yearb Med Inform 2008; 17(01): 128-144
DOI: 10.1055/s-0038-1638592
Original Article
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart

Extracting Information from Textual Documents in the Electronic Health Record: A Review of Recent Research

S. M. Meystre
1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
,
G. K. Savova
2   Biomedical Informatics Research, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
,
K. C. Kipper-Schuler
2   Biomedical Informatics Research, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
,
J. F. Hurdle
1   Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Correspondence to

Stéphane M. Meystre
University of Utah
Department of Biomedical Informatics 26 South 2000 East
HSEB Suite 5700 Salt Lake City
UT 84112-5750
USA
Phone: +1 801 581 4080   
Fax: +1 801 581 4297   

Publication History

Publication Date:
07 March 2018 (online)

 

Summary

Objectives We examine recent published research on the extraction of information from textual documents in the Electronic Health Record (EHR).

Methods Literature review of the research published after 1995, based on PubMed, conference proceedings, and the ACM Digital Library, as well as on relevant publications referenced in papers already included.

Results 174 publications were selected and are discussed in this review in terms of methods used, pre-processing of textual documents, contextual features detection and analysis, extraction of information in general, extraction of codes and of information for decision-support and enrichment of the EHR, information extraction for surveillance, research, automated terminology management, and data mining, and de-identification of clinical text.

Conclusions Performance of information extraction systems with clinical text has improved since the last systematic review in 1995, but they are still rarely applied outside of the laboratory they have been developed in. Competitive challenges for information extraction from clinical text, along with the availability of annotated clinical text corpora, and further improvements in system performance are important factors to stimulate advances in this field and to increase the acceptance and usage of these systems in concrete clinical and biomedical research contexts.


 



Correspondence to

Stéphane M. Meystre
University of Utah
Department of Biomedical Informatics 26 South 2000 East
HSEB Suite 5700 Salt Lake City
UT 84112-5750
USA
Phone: +1 801 581 4080   
Fax: +1 801 581 4297