Harris, Daniel R.

Abstract Objective: Electronic Health Record (EHR) data are critical for advancing translational research and AI technologies. The ENACT network offers access to structured EHR data across 57 CTSA hubs. However, substantial information is contained in clinical narratives, requiring natural language processing (NLP) for research. The ENACT NLP Working Group was formed to make NLP-derived clinical information accessible and queryable across the network. Methods: We established the ENACT NLP Working Group with 13 sites selected based on criteria including clinical notes access, IT infrastructure, NLP expertise, and institutional support. We divided sites into five focus groups targeting clinical tasks within disease contexts. Each focus group consisted of two development sites and two validation sites. We extended the ENACT ontology to standardize NLP-derived data and conducted multisite evaluations using the Open Health Natural Language Processing (OHNLP) Toolkit. Results: The working group achieved 100% site retention and deployed NLP infrastructure across all sites. We developed and validated NLP algorithms for rare disease phenotyping, social determinants of health, opioid use disorder, sleep phenotyping, and delirium phenotyping. Performance varied across sites (F1 scores 0.53–0.96), highlighting data heterogeneity impacts. We extended the ENACT common data model and ontology to incorporate NLP-derived data while maintaining Shared Health Research Informatics NEtwork (SHRINE) compatibility. Conclusion: This demonstrates feasibility of deploying NLP infrastructure across large, federated networks. The focus group approach proved more practical than general-purpose approaches. Key lessons include the challenge of data heterogeneity and importance of collaborative governance. This work also provides a foundation that other networks can build on to implement NLP capabilities for translational research.

Abstract Despite recent methodology advancements in clinical natural language processing (NLP), the adoption of clinical NLP models within the translational research community remains hindered by process heterogeneity and human factor variations. Concurrently, these factors also dramatically increase the difficulty in developing NLP models in multi-site settings, which is necessary for algorithm robustness and generalizability. Here, we reported on our experience developing an NLP solution for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) signs and symptom extraction in an open NLP framework from a subset of sites participating in the National COVID Cohort (N3C). We then empirically highlight the benefits of multi-site data for both symbolic and statistical methods, as well as highlight the need for federated annotation and evaluation to resolve several pitfalls encountered in the course of these efforts.