A Systematic Review of Natural Language Processing in Healthcare

The healthcare system is a knowledge driven\udindustry which consists of vast and growing volumes of\udnarrative information obtained from discharge\udsummaries/reports, physicians case notes, pathologists as well\udas radiologists reports. This information is usually stored in\udunstructured and non-standardized formats in electronic\udhealthcare systems which make it difficult for the systems to\udunderstand the information contents of the narrative information.\udThus, the access to valuable and meaningful healthcare\udinformation for decision making is a challenge. Nevertheless,\udNatural Language Processing (NLP) techniques have been used\udto structure narrative information in healthcare. Thus, NLP\udtechniques have the capability to capture unstructured\udhealthcare information, analyze its grammatical structure,\uddetermine the meaning of the information and translate the\udinformation so that it can be easily understood by the electronic\udhealthcare systems. Consequently, NLP techniques reduce cost\udas well as improve the quality of healthcare. It is therefore\udagainst this background that this paper reviews the NLP\udtechniques used in healthcare, their applications as well as their\udlimitations