Automated extraction of family history information from clinical notes

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2014 Nov 14:2014:1709-17. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Despite increased functionality for obtaining family history in a structured format within electronic health record systems, clinical notes often still contain this information. We developed and evaluated an Unstructured Information Management Application (UIMA)-based natural language processing (NLP) module for automated extraction of family history information with functionality for identifying statements, observations (e.g., disease or procedure), relative or side of family with attributes (i.e., vital status, age of diagnosis, certainty, and negation), and predication ("indicator phrases"), the latter of which was used to establish relationships between observations and family member. The family history NLP system demonstrated F-scores of 66.9, 92.4, 82.9, 57.3, 97.7, and 61.9 for detection of family history statements, family member identification, observation identification, negation identification, vital status, and overall extraction of the predications between family members and observations, respectively. While the system performed well for detection of family history statements and predication constituents, further work is needed to improve extraction of certainty and temporal modifications.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

  • Electronic Health Records*
  • Family Health*
  • Humans
  • Information Storage and Retrieval / methods*
  • Medical History Taking / methods*
  • Natural Language Processing*