Apparatus and method for automatically mapping verbatim narratives to terms in a terminology dictionary

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11023679-B2
Application number	US-201715443828-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 27, 2017
Priority date	Feb 27, 2017
Publication date	Jun 1, 2021
Grant date	Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

An apparatus for automatically mapping a verbatim narrative to a term in a medical terminology dictionary includes a natural language processor and a comparator. The natural language processor processes terms from the medical terminology dictionary and from a medical coding decision database to generate a processed database that also includes the original terms from the medical terminology dictionary and the medical coding decision database. The natural language processor also processes the verbatim narrative. The comparator compares the processed verbatim narrative to the terms in the processed database and determines whether the processed verbatim narrative is an exact match to a term in the processed database. The verbatim narrative is mapped to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that corresponds to the term in the processed database that is an exact match. The verbatim narratives may include adverse event narratives, concomitant medication narratives, or other types of narratives. A method for automatically mapping a verbatim narrative to a term in a medical terminology dictionary is also described and claimed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An apparatus for automatically mapping a verbatim narrative to a term in a medical terminology dictionary, comprising:
a natural language processor configured to:
process terms from the medical terminology dictionary and from a medical coding decision database to generate a processed database, the terms being processed by stemming, wherein the processed database also comprises the original terms from the medical terminology dictionary and the medical coding decision database; and
process the verbatim narrative by stemming one or more words in the verbatim narrative;
a comparator configured to compare the processed verbatim narrative as a whole to the terms in the processed database and determine whether the processed verbatim narrative as a whole is an exact match to a term in the processed database, wherein the verbatim narrative is mapped to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that corresponds to the term in the processed database that is an exact match; and
a naïve Bayes classifier that, if there is no exact match, is configured to statistically analyze the verbatim narrative and map the verbatim narrative to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that is the closest match to the verbatim narrative, wherein the naïve Bayes classifier is a letters-based model if the probability of an assigned term is less than a pre-determined value and a words-based model if the probability exceeds the pre-determined value.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the medical terminology dictionary is a drug terminology dictionary and wherein the terms in the drug terminology dictionary comprise active ingredients of drugs.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein processing the verbatim narrative comprises substituting for words in the verbatim narrative synonyms derived from the medical coding decision database or deleting words from the verbatim narrative that are considered inconsequential based on the medical coding decision database, or both substituting and deleting.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein:
before the natural language processor processes terms to generate the processed database, the comparator compares the verbatim narrative to the terms from the medical terminology dictionary, the term that is an exact match is selected, and the verbatim narrative is mapped to the term that is an exact match; and
if there is no match, the comparator compares the verbatim narrative to terms from the medical coding decision database, the term that is an exact match is selected, and the verbatim narrative is mapped to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that corresponds to the term that is an exact match.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein a second comparator performs at least one of the comparisons.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the natural language processor:
cleans the verbatim narrative; and
sorts the words in the verbatim narrative,
wherein after each of these operations the comparator compares the processed verbatim narrative to the terms in the processed database and it is then determined whether the processed verbatim narrative is an exact match to a term in the processed database.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the medical coding decision database comprises auto-mappings to exact matches in the medical terminology dictionary.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the medical coding decision database comprises human-coded mappings to the medical terminology dictionary.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the medical coding decision database comprises auto-mappings to exact matches in the medical terminology dictionary and human-coded mappings to the medical terminology dictionary.

10. A method for automatically mapping a verbatim narrative to a term in a medical terminology dictionary, comprising:
generating a processed database by processing through a natural language processor terms from the medical terminology dictionary and from a medical coding decision database, the term processing including stemming the terms, wherein the processed database also comprises the original terms from the medical terminology dictionary and the medical coding decision database;
processing the verbatim narrative through the natural language processor by stemming one or more words in the verbatim narrative;
comparing the processed verbatim narrative as a whole to the terms in the processed database;
determining whether the processed verbatim narrative as a whole is an exact match to a term in the processed database;
if there is a match, mapping the verbatim narrative to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that corresponds to the term in the processed database that is an exact match; and
if there is no exact match,
statistically analyzing the verbatim narrative using a naïve Bayes classifier that is a letters-based model if the probability of an assigned term is less than a pre-determined value and a words-based model if the probability exceeds the pre-determined value; and
mapping the verbatim narrative to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that is the closest match to the verbatim narrative.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the medical terminology dictionary is a drug terminology dictionary and wherein the terms in the drug terminology dictionary are active ingredients of drugs.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein processing the verbatim narrative through the natural language processor comprises substituting for words in the verbatim narrative synonyms derived from the medical coding decision database or deleting words from the verbatim narrative that are considered inconsequential based on the medical coding decision database, or both substituting and deleting.

13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
before generating the processed database, comparing the verbatim narrative to the terms from the medical terminology dictionary, selecting the term that is an exact match, and mapping the verbatim narrative to the term that is an exact match; and
if there is no match, comparing the verbatim narrative to terms from the medical coding decision database, selecting the term that is an exact match, and then mapping the verbatim narrative to the term in the medical terminology dictionary that corresponds to the term that is an exact match.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein processing the verbatim narrative through the natural language processor further comprises:
cleaning the verbatim narrative; and
sorting the words in the verbatim narrative,
wherein after each of these operations:
the processed verbatim narrative is compared to the terms in the processed database; and
the processed verbatim narrative is determined whether it is an exact match to a term in the processed database.

15. An apparatus for automatically mapping a concomitant medication (con-med) narrative to an active ingredient in a drug terminology dictionary, comprising:
a processed database comprising:
original active ingredients from the drug terminology dictionary;
original terms from a medical coding decision database that correspond to active ingredients in the drug terminology dictionary; and

processed active ingredients from the drug terminology dictionary and processed terms from the medical coding decision database that correspond to active ingredients in the drug terminology dictionary;
a comparator configured to compare a processed con-med narrative to the active ingredients and terms in the processed database and to determine whether the processed con-med narrative is an exact match to an active ingredient or term in the pr

Assignees

• Medidata Solutions Inc

Inventors

• Allen Patricia
• Howland Andrew
• Beineke Philip
• Chandler Mark
• Elashoff Michael
• Laudanovic Mladen
• Liu Jingshu
• Cestone Michael
• Liu Jenny

Classifications

• G06F40/242 Primary

  Dictionaries · CPC title

• G16H15/00

  ICT specially adapted for medical reports, e.g. generation or transmission thereof · CPC title

• G06F40/279 Primary

  Recognition of textual entities · CPC title

• G16H10/20

  for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires · CPC title

• G06F40/247

  Thesauruses; Synonyms · CPC title