Artificial intelligence approaches using natural language processing to advance EHR-based clinical research

J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2020 Feb;145(2):463-469. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2019.12.897. Epub 2019 Dec 26.

Abstract

The wide adoption of electronic health record systems in health care generates big real-world data that open new venues to conduct clinical research. As a large amount of valuable clinical information is locked in clinical narratives, natural language processing techniques as an artificial intelligence approach have been leveraged to extract information from clinical narratives in electronic health records. This capability of natural language processing potentially enables automated chart review for identifying patients with distinctive clinical characteristics in clinical care and reduces methodological heterogeneity in defining phenotype, obscuring biological heterogeneity in research concerning allergy, asthma, and immunology. This brief review discusses the current literature on the secondary use of electronic health record data for clinical research concerning allergy, asthma, and immunology and highlights the potential, challenges, and implications of natural language processing techniques.

Keywords: EHRs; algorithms; allergy; artificial intelligence; asthma; data mining; immunology; informatics; machine learning; natural language processing.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Allergy and Immunology*
  • Electronic Health Records*
  • Humans
  • Natural Language Processing*
  • Research Design*