Enterprise IT vendor IBM today announced that its content analysis software allows doctors using Epic’s electronic medical record (EMR) software to incorporate their notes into patient records to extract insights in real-time.
In a statement, IBM said the integration of IBM’s natural language processing software with Epic’s EMR represents a major advance that enables physician practices to use narrative notes as part of patient documentation.
IBM’s technology aims to help doctors more accurately document patient issues such as diagnoses, medications and allergies into EMR systems. By creating this opportunity to capture data elements for each patient, IBM’s solutions can enable more holistic and individualized care, coordinated between various providers.
The company said IBM’s software can analyze doctors’ notes and transform them into a format that can be readily uploaded into the patient record, including automatically adding industry standard diagnosis and treatment codes.
“Electronic medical records are at the center of most care processes today, and adding a natural language option to the documentation tools can improve the quality and efficiency of health care today,” said Michael Weiner, DO, director, healthcare strategic services, IBM.
This natural language processing software, called IBM Content Analytics is part of the IBM Advanced Care Insight Solution and is also used in the IBM Watson cognitive system, allowing it to understand complex questions posed in natural language and uncover answers from vast amounts of data.
