Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36898410›Full record

ArticleApplied clinical informatics2023

A Natural Language Processing Model to Identify Confidential Content in Adolescent Clinical Notes.

Naveed Rabbani, Michael Bedgood, Conner Brown, Ethan Steinberg, Rachel L Goldstein, Jennifer L Carlson, Natalie Pageler, Keith E Morse

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Applied clinical informatics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  3. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Naveed RabbaniDepartment of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.
Michael BedgoodCalifornia Department of Public Health, Richmond, California, United States.
Conner BrownInformation Services Department, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Palo Alto, California, United States.
Ethan SteinbergCenter for Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.
Rachel L GoldsteinDivision of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.
Jennifer L CarlsonDivision of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.
Natalie PagelerDepartment of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.
Keith E MorseDepartment of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe 21st Century Cures Act mandates the immediate, electronic release of health information to patients. However, in the case of adolescents, special consideration is required to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. The detection of confidential content in clinical notes may support operational efforts to preserve adolescent confidentiality while implementing information sharing.

objectivesThis study aimed to determine if a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm can identify confidential content in adolescent clinical progress notes.

methodsA total of 1,200 outpatient adolescent progress notes written between 2016 and 2019 were manually annotated to identify confidential content. Labeled sentences from this corpus were featurized and used to train a two-part logistic regression model, which provides both sentence-level and note-level probability estimates that a given text contains confidential content. This model was prospectively validated on a set of 240 progress notes written in May 2022. It was subsequently deployed in a pilot intervention to augment an ongoing operational effort to identify confidential content in progress notes. Note-level probability estimates were used to triage notes for review and sentence-level probability estimates were used to highlight high-risk portions of those notes to aid the manual reviewer.

resultsThe prevalence of notes containing confidential content was 21% (255/1,200) and 22% (53/240) in the train/test and validation cohorts, respectively. The ensemble logistic regression model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic of 90 and 88% in the test and validation cohorts, respectively. Its use in a pilot intervention identified outlier documentation practices and demonstrated efficiency gains over completely manual note review.

conclusionAn NLP algorithm can identify confidential content in progress notes with high accuracy. Its human-in-the-loop deployment in clinical operations augmented an ongoing operational effort to identify confidential content in adolescent progress notes. These findings suggest NLP may be used to support efforts to preserve adolescent confidentiality in the wake of the information blocking mandate.

Indexed as

ConfidentialityNatural Language ProcessingAdolescentAlgorithmsDocumentationElectronic Health RecordsHumansLanguage

Identifiers

PMID36898410
PMCPMC10208722

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.