Detect-HAI

Detect-HAI - Detection of Hospital Acquired Infections through language technology
(In Swedish: Detektion av vårdrelaterade infektioner genom språkteknologisk analys av elektroniska patientjournaler) 

Project manager: Hercules Dalianis
Participants from DSV:  Martin Hassel, Hideyuki Tanushi, Mia Kvist and Gunnar Nilsson
Participants from Karolinska University Hospital: Elda Sparrelid and Gunnar Ekeving
Participants from Uppsala University: Claudia Ehrentraut
Project duration: January  - December 2012
Funding: Karolinska University Hospital and DSV

The goals of the project

• To construct a system that automatically can detect if a hospital aquired infection (HAI) has occurred by analyzing clinicl free text written in Swedish in a patient record, specifically in an epicrisis.

• To detect HAI with a precision (sensibility) with over 90 percent and a recall (sensitivity) on around 50 percent.

• Long term goal is to monitor hospital aquired infections and consquently diminish adverse events in hospital care.

Electronic patient records and language technology

Digital or electronic patient records is a vast source for reuse since a large part of the health care process is documented in free text. As language technology has been developed and matured in recent years one can use automated tools to structure and extract important information. This can be used to improve the health care process in general, diminish adverse events and specifically hospital acquired infections.