The freetext matching algorithm: a computer program to extract diagnoses and causes of death from unstructured text in electronic health records.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Electronic health records are invaluable for medical research, but much information is stored as free text rather than in a coded form. For example, in the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD), causes of death and test results are sometimes recorded only in free text. Free text can be difficult to use for research if it requires time-consuming manual review. Our aim was to develop an automated method for extracting coded information from free text in electronic patient records.

Methods

We reviewed the electronic patient records in GPRD of a random sample of 3310 patients who died in 2001, to identify the cause of death. We developed a computer program called the Freetext Matching Algorithm (FMA) to map diagnoses in text to the Read Clinical Terminology. Th

SUBMITTER: Shah AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3483188 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature