Development and evaluation of an open source software tool for deidentification of pathology reports.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Electronic medical records, including pathology reports, are often used for research purposes. Currently, there are few programs freely available to remove identifiers while leaving the remainder of the pathology report text intact. Our goal was to produce an open source, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant, deidentification tool tailored for pathology reports. We designed a three-step process for removing potential identifiers. The first step is to look for identifiers known to be associated with the patient, such as name, medical record number, pathology accession number, etc. Next, a series of pattern matches look for predictable patterns likely to represent identifying data; such as dates, accession numbers and addresses as well as p

SUBMITTER: Beckwith BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1421388 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature