Using NLP to fill health information gaps

Atrius Health, a non-profit healthcare organization providing primary and specialty care, has implemented natural language processing (NLP) technology to identify and extract clinical information hidden in unstructured patient data.

Atrius Health has chosen Linguamatics’ health enterprise NLP platform, powered by Linguamatics 12E, to improve Medicare Advantage reimbursement, streamline ACO reporting and reduce care gaps.

Joe Kimura, MD, Atrius Health’s chief medical officer, says, “A vast amount of critical clinical data exists as unstructured text, which is difficult to access and analyze. We are leveraging the power of NLP to replace the manual, inefficient data extraction processes that many healthcare organizations struggle with, in order to advance our quality care initiatives more rapidly. Linguamatics NLP allows us to close gaps in care, enhance clinical documentation for chronic disorders, reduce litigation risks and streamline Medicare ACO quality reporting.”

Craig Monsen, MD, Atrius Health’s medical director of analytics, says, “By operationalizing our use of Linguamatics NLP, we can more efficiently support our value-based care initiatives. Clinicians and patients benefit from more accurate problem lists for chronic disease without adding to the existing documentation burden, the ACO reporting process can be simplified and Medicare Advantage coding is more complete. We now can expand our patient safety net efforts using Linguamatics because it is easier to identify patients with difficult-to-track conditions such as pulmonary nodules. By responding early to harbingers of lung cancer or other conditions for which we have safe, effective preventative interventions, we aim to improve our patient outcomes.”

Atrius Health will expand use of I2E for additional care initiatives, such as identifying social determinants of health to extend interventions and to support behavioral healthcare and outreach, according to Linguamatics.

Atrius Health provides care to more than 740,000 adult and pediatric patients across eastern and central Massachusetts.