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Computerized Extraction of Information on the Quality of Diabetes Care from Free Text in Electronic Patient Records of General Practitioners

^a Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
^b Trial Coordination Center, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Groningen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

^_* Correspondence and reprint requests to: J. Voorham UMCG, Sector F, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, POB 196, 9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands (Email: j.voorham{at}epi.umcg.nl).

Received for publication: 04/18/06; accepted for publication: 01/26/07.

Objective: This study evaluated a computerized method for extracting numeric clinical measurements related to diabetes care from free text in electronic patient records (EPR) of general practitioners.

Design and Measurements: Accuracy of this number-oriented approach was compared to manual chart abstraction. Audits measured performance in clinical practice for two commonly used electronic record systems.

Results: Numeric measurements embedded within free text of the EPRs constituted 80% of relevant measurements. For 11 of 13 clinical measurements, the study extraction method was 94%–100% sensitive with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 85%–100%. Post-processing increased sensitivity several points and improved PPV to 100%. Application in clinical practice involved processing times averaging 7.8 minutes per 100 patients to extract all relevant data.

Conclusion: The study method converted numeric clinical information to structured data with high accuracy, and enabled research and quality of care assessments for practices lacking structured data entry.

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