Using natural language processing to assess palliative care processes in cancer patients receiving venting gastrostomy tube.

Abstract

7 Background: Natural Language Processing (NLP) presents a novel method of extracting text-embedded information from the electronic health record (EHR) to improve routine assessment of palliative quality metrics such as timely advance care planning (ACP), palliative care provision (PC), and hospice referral. Methods: We identified cancer patients (ICD-9-CM codes 140-209) who received a gastrostomy tube (ICD-9-CM 43.11, 43.19, 44.32; CPT code 49440) from Jan 1, 2012, to Mar 31, 2016 at an academic medical center. We used NLP to identify palliative indication for gastrostomy tube placement by labeling clinical notes from the EHR containing the key word “venting” near the time of the procedure. Documentation of ACP, PC, and hospice referral was identified by NLP using a validated key term library. The sensitivity and specificity of the NLP method was determined by comparing outcome identification to manual chart abstraction performed by two clinicians. All NLP code was written in the open-source programming language Python. Results: NLP was performed for 75,626 documents. Among 305 cancer patients who underwent gastrostomy, 75 (24.6%) were classified by NLP as having a palliative indication for the procedure compared to 72 patients (23.6%) classified by human coders. Manual chart abstraction took > 2,600 times longer than NLP (28 hrs vs. 38 seconds). NLP identified the correct patients with high precision (0.92) and recall (0.96). ACP was documented during the index admission for 89.3% of patients. PC was documented for 85.7% and hospice referral was documented for 64.3% of these patients with advanced cancer during the index hospitalization. NLP identified ACP, PC and hospice referral with high precision (0.88-1.0) and recall (0.92-1.0) compared to human coders. Median survival was 37 days following gastrostomy tube procedure. Conclusions: NLP can greatly speed the assessment of established palliative quality metrics with an accuracy approaching that of human coders. These methods offer opportunities for facilitate quality improvement in palliative care for patients with advanced cancer.