IP Library › Granted Patent US 11,461,496
Granted Patent B2
US 11,461,496 · App. 16/897,153 · Granted Oct 4, 2022

De-identification of electronic records

Inventors: Beau Norgeot (Palo Alto, CA); Atul Butte (San Francisco, CA); Gundolf Schenk (San Francisco, CA); Eugenia Rutenberg (San Francisco, CA)
Assignee: The Regents of the University of California
G06F21/6254G06F21/33G06F40/284G16H10/60
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,461,496
App. No.
16/897,153
Granted
Oct 4, 2022
Kind
B2
Abstract

A system is provided for de-identifying electronic records. The system may be configured to tokenize an electronic record to produce a plurality of tokens including a first token. The system may determine whether the first token is part of one of a plurality of expressions known to include protected health information. In response to determining that the first token is not part of any one of the plurality of expressions, the system may determine, based on a blacklist of tokens known to include protected health information, whether the first token includes protected health information. In response to determining that the first token includes protected health information, the system may generate a de-identified electronic record by replacing the first token with a second token obfuscating the protected health information. Related methods and computer program products are also provided.

Claims (45)

1. A system, comprising:

at least one data processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions, which when executed by the at least one data processor, result in operations comprising:

tokenizing an electronic record to produce a plurality of tokens including a first token;

determining whether a protected health information is included in the electronic record by at least:

determining whether the first token is part of one of a first plurality of expressions, each of the first plurality of expressions known to include the protected health information, and

in response to determining that the first token is not part of any one of the first plurality of expressions, determining, based on a blacklist of tokens known to comprise the protected health information, whether the first token comprises the protected health information;

in response to determining that the first token comprises the protected health information, generating a de-identified electronic record by at least replacing the first token with a second token obfuscating the protected health information; and

responding to an incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least updating the first plurality of expressions, the first plurality of expressions being updated by at least adding, to the first plurality of expressions, an expression including the first token and a third token adjacent to the first token in the electronic record.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least updating the blacklist of tokens, the blacklist of tokens being updated by at least adding the first token to the black list of tokens or removing the first token from the blacklist of tokens.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the first token comprises the protected health information further comprises assigning a part-of-speech to the first token.

4. The system of claim 3 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least modifying the part-of-speech assigned to the first token, the part-of-speech assigned to the first token being modified by at least modifying a first part-of-speech tagging algorithm applied to assign the part-of-speech to the first token and/or changing the first part-of-speech tagging algorithm to a second part-of-speech tagging algorithm.

5. The system of claim 3 , further comprising:

in response to the first token being assigned a first part-of-speech, determining, based on the blacklist of tokens known to comprise the protected health information, whether the first token comprises the protected health information.

6. The system of claim 5 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least applying the blacklist of tokens in response to the first token being assigned a second part-of-speech instead of the first part-of-speech.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

in response to determining that the first token comprises neither the protected health information nor a non-protected health information, generating the de-identified electronic record by at least replacing the first token with the second token obfuscating the protected health information.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining whether the first token comprises a non-protected health information by at least determining whether the first token is part of one of a second plurality of expressions, each of the second plurality of expressions known to exclude the protected health information.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining whether the first token comprises the protected health information based at least on a notes map including one or more note-specific unsafe regular expressions, one or more note-specific blacklists, and/or one or more note-specific parts of speech.

10. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

tokenizing an electronic record to produce a plurality of tokens including a first token;

determining whether a protected health information is included in the electronic record by at least

determining whether the first token is part of one of a first plurality of expressions, each of the first plurality of expressions known to include the protected health information, and

in response to determining that the first token is not part of any one of the first plurality of expressions, determining, based on a blacklist of tokens known to comprise the protected health information, whether the first token comprises the protected health information;

in response to determining that the first token comprises the protected health information, generating a de-identified electronic record by at least replacing the first token with a second token obfuscating the protected health information; and

responding to an incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least updating the first plurality of expressions, the first plurality of expressions being updated by at least adding, to the first plurality of expressions, an expression including the first token and a third token adjacent to the first token in the electronic record.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least updating the blacklist of tokens, the blacklist of tokens being updated by at least adding the first token to the black list of tokens or removing the first token from the blacklist of tokens.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein determining whether the first token comprises the protected health information further comprises assigning a part-of-speech to the first token.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least modifying the part-of-speech assigned to the first token, the part-of-speech assigned to the first token being modified by at least modifying a first part-of-speech tagging algorithm applied to assign the part-of-speech to the first token and/or changing the first part-of-speech tagging algorithm to a second part-of-speech tagging algorithm.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

in response to the first token being assigned a first part-of-speech, determining, based on the blacklist of tokens known to comprise the protected health information, whether the first token comprises the protected health information.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

responding to the incorrect identification of the protected health information by at least applying the blacklist of tokens in response to the first token being assigned a second part-of-speech instead of the first part-of-speech.

16. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

in response to determining that the first token comprises neither the protected health information nor a non-protected health information, generating the de-identified electronic record by at least replacing the first token with the second token obfuscating the protected health information.

17. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

determining whether the first token comprises a non-protected health information by at least determining whether the first token is part of one of a second plurality of expressions, each of the second plurality of expressions known to exclude the protected health information.

18. The method of claim 10 , further comprising determining whether the first token comprises the protected health information based at least on a notes map including one or more note-specific unsafe regular expressions, one or more note-specific blacklists, and/or one or more note-specific parts of speech.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jan 20, 2021
From: NORGEOT, BEAU; BUTTE, ATUL J.; SCHENK, GUNDOLF; RUTENBERG, EUGENIA
To: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Reel/Frame 054967/0802 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 62861963 · Jun 14, 2019
Related Publication 20200394333A1 · Dec 17, 2020