NEMT Inks Deal With NLP International

Few industries are advancing as quickly as the healthcare information field and New England Medical Transcription (NEMT) transcription firm has announced that it has signed a contract with NLP International, a natural language processing company.
“Natural language processing is the future of healthcare information,” Linda Sullivan, president of Maine-based NEMT, says.

Under the current system used by transcription firms, doctors dictate reports, which are then transcribed by medical transcriptionists. Coders, billing specialists, and other healthcare providers must then read the entire report, searching for the pertinent information they seek.

NLP International provides the technology to parse or tag all data elements in the transcribed document. Andrew Clarke, NEMT's director of IT, explained that natural language processing software will comb through reports looking for pertinent information. This information is coded using a system similar to that used in Web pages so specialized software can be used to give clinicians and coders an easy and effective way to examine key data.  

Every healthcare facility today is working toward achieving meaningful use and NLP International and NEMT together can provide the tools to do that.  Ultimately, “the whole idea is to improve patient care,” Clarke says.

The software will also allow hospitals and clinics to search through multiple reports quickly to conduct medical studies or to look for patterns in symptoms or treatment.

Source: New England Medical Transcription