Computerized extraction of coded findings from free-text radiologic reports. Work in progress.
A computerized data acquisition tool, the special purpose radiology understanding system (SPRUS), has been implemented as a module in the Health Evaluation through Logical Processing Hospital Information System. This tool uses semantic information from a diagnostic expert system to parse free-text radiology reports and to extract and encode both the findings and the radiologists' interpretations. These coded findings and interpretations are then stored in a clinical data base. The system recognizes both radiologic findings and diagnostic interpretations. Initial tests showed a true-positive rate of 87% for radiographic findings and a bad data rate of 5%. Diagnostic interpretations are recognized at a rate of 95% with a bad data rate of 6%. Testing suggests that these rates can be improved through enhancements to the system's thesaurus and the computerized medical knowledge that drives it. This system holds promise as a tool to obtain coded radiologic data for research, medical audit, and patient care.
Haug
P J
PJ
Department of Medical Informatics, LDS Hospital/University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84143.
Ranum
D L
DL
Frederick
P R
PR
D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; D004282:Documentation; D005103:Expert Systems; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D009862:Online Systems; D011873:Radiology Information Systems