Low risk, high quality structured data from outpatient letters (HIPS)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Healthcare Impact Partnership: creating low risk, high quality structured data from outpatient letters.
IRAS ID
331168
Contact name
Goran Nenadic
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 4 months, 31 days
Research summary
The University of Manchester is working with Northern Care Alliance to develop software that can automatically extract information from free text in outpatient letters.
The objective is to address the problem of missing data in outpatient settings. Currently, diagnoses and prescriptions made in hospital settings are only recorded in the free text written in outpatient letters. In order to answer research questions such as ‘how many people are diagnosed with a neurological condition?’ or ‘how do people respond to treatment?’ researchers have to manually search through the letter, which may contain additional sensitive information. The use of AI to extract the information into a structured format would enable research to be carried out without the need for researchers to access outpatient letters.
This project will be carried out at one hospital in the North of England, between April 2024 and September 2026.
The research team will first develop Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools on a small sample of outpatient letters. The letters will be automatically and manually de-identified by NHS staff before they are provided to the research team within the hospital computer network. Once the tools have been developed and tested by the research team, staff at NCA will apply them to the entire sample of outpatient letters for Rheumatology, Dermatology and Neurology.
The resulting structured datasets will be linked with age, gender and postcode and provided to members of the research team to answer clinical research questions.
Data will be stored on the hospital computer network. Access controls will be in place and researchers will complete ONS training on working in secure data environments. Section 251 support will be sought from the CAG prior to starting the project.REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/SW/0026
Date of REC Opinion
28 Feb 2024
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion