Mining Electronic Health Records Reveals Clues Of Harmful Drug Reactions

A study published today in Nature Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics showcases the potential power of sophisticated data analytics when applied to electronic health records on a large scale. By predicting harmful drug side effects two years before an alert from the Food and Drug Administration, the technology can complement the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System, which collects information from doctors, pharmacists, and patients once a drug is on the market.

Less than three years ago, bioinformaticians at Stanford University set out to capture information buried, not just in insurance claims, lab tests or medical codes, but in the rich narrative of 10 million clinical notes gleaned from 1.8 million patients on Epic Systems electronic health records. [...]