Three reasons why NLP will go mainstream in healthcare in 2023

Natural language processing is an AI subfield with promising medical applications, as it can extract clinically relevant information from the vast amounts of unstructured text stored in EHRs and databases. Marty Elisco, CEO of Augintel, an NLP startup in the healthcare industry, predicts that the field will explode in popularity by 2023 for three reasons: The kinks have been ironed out meaning the technology has matured, its usefulness has been demonstrated, and the time is right.

In context to kinks have been ironed out, Marty Elisco says Multiple fields and industries can benefit from NLP’s use, including e-discovery, voice-to-text recognition, and mental and social health care. However, we are employing NLP in this area for content intelligence, also known as information extraction, from written material. With the falling cost of model development in recent years, it is now viable to create models tailored to certain industries. The pilots that were meant to verify the viability of industry-specific solutions have concluded, making such solutions commercially available in the past year or so. Thus, the kinks have been ironed out. Innovative software companies have developed mission-specific SaaS solutions with rich context that are easily accessible, and customers are now reaping the benefits.

In regards to NLP’s value has been proven, Marty Elisco says as one example, caseworkers at Allegheny County were continuing to find that so much rich information was buried within case notes and unstructured data using NLP. Using the NLP technology, one caseworker reports saving five hours per week on routine administrative tasks. Allegheny County has improved its understanding of social factors influencing health thanks in part to an NLP platform.

Finally, in regards to her comment on “time is right”, she says it’s no secret that in recent years, healthcare institutions everywhere have struggled to overcome the effects of staff shortages and burnouts. The clinicians are overworked and are spending too much time away from the individuals in their care, and they’re fed up. When you consider the effect that lost case knowledge due to the attrition, it becomes evident that we cannot afford to keep things as they are if we want a sustainable healthcare system. However, recent developments in low-cost machine learning techniques, especially natural language processing (NLP), can help reduce some of that pressure. It is now the perfect opportunity for healthcare professionals to utilize existing resources. As a result, Marty Elisco anticipates 2023 as the breakthrough year for NLP.Natural language processing is an AI subfield with promising medical applications, as it can extract clinically relevant information from the vast amounts of unstructured text stored in EHRs and databases. Marty Elisco, CEO of Augintel, an NLP startup in the healthcare industry, predicts that the field will explode in popularity by 2023 for three reasons: The kinks have been ironed out meaning the technology has matured, its usefulness has been demonstrated, and the time is right.

Source: Healthcareitnews