Problem List Automation

Problem list population in Electronic Health Records (EHR)is integral in driving many key functions of clinical decision support systems. Despite this, problem lists are often underutilized and lack the necessary data to unlock the benefits of programmed support. The reasons for this vary, but many factors for this failure revolve around the time constraints and workflow of clinical care providers. Providers often only view patient care in an episodic fashion rather than around a longitudinal framework in which a problem list would seem to hold more merit. Methodologies surrounding secondary entry of problem list data have been proposed to address this deficit. Goals of these methodologies include timely, precise, and accurate data entry with minimal workload burden on responsible providers. Natural language processing has been proposed as a potential solution to this issue.