Information flow in intensive care narratives

Fluent patient information flow is a prerequisite for clinical decision making. Our purpose is to identify unmet information needs in the flow of Finnish intensive care narratives in order to focus the development of natural language processing methods for this domain. Our data set consists of 516 authentic electronic patient records. First, we assess statistically the amount of narratives. We find that the amount is substantial: elective admission type and high nursing intensity contribute this. Second, we perform a content analysis. We observe that notes relevant for a given topic are scattered over the narratives, headings are inconsistent, and the flow from earlier narratives is fragmented. Consequently, support for gaining topical overviews is needed. Meeting this clinical need holds the promise of making narratives better accessible throughout a patient´s stay and thereby improving clinical decision making and outcomes of care.