Real-time clinical note monitoring to detect conditions for rapid follow-up: A case study of clinical trial enrollment in drug-induced torsades de pointes and Stevens-Johnson syndrome

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2021 Jan 15;28(1):126-131. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocaa213.

Abstract

Identifying acute events as they occur is challenging in large hospital systems. Here, we describe an automated method to detect 2 rare adverse drug events (ADEs), drug-induced torsades de pointes and Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis, in near real time for participant recruitment into prospective clinical studies. A text processing system searched clinical notes from the electronic health record (EHR) for relevant keywords and alerted study personnel via email of potential patients for chart review or in-person evaluation. Between 2016 and 2018, the automated recruitment system resulted in capture of 138 true cases of drug-induced rare events, improving recall from 43% to 93%. Our focused electronic alert system maintained 2-year enrollment, including across an EHR migration from a bespoke system to Epic. Real-time monitoring of EHR notes may accelerate research for certain conditions less amenable to conventional study recruitment paradigms.

Keywords: data mining; electronic health records; natural language processing; patient selection; precision medicine; rare diseases.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Data Mining
  • Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions / diagnosis*
  • Electronic Health Records*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Medical Order Entry Systems*
  • Middle Aged
  • Prospective Studies
  • Rare Diseases / diagnosis
  • Stevens-Johnson Syndrome / diagnosis*
  • Torsades de Pointes / chemically induced*
  • Torsades de Pointes / diagnosis