October 31, 2016 — In an effort to improve patient care, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's (CHOP) Information Services team is using data and advanced analytics to screen patients for venous thromboembolism (VTE). This innovative technology is being honored by Drexel University and CIO.com in their inaugural Analytics 50 award ceremony, which will be held on Nov. 9, 2016 at Drexel University's LeBow College of Business.
VTE is currently the second-most common contributor to harm in hospitalized pediatric patients. If left untreated, it can result in a pulmonary embolism, infection or death. Using natural language processing (NLP), CHOP now scans radiologists' reports for designated keywords and phrases to provide a high level of accuracy in identifying and tracking patients who could be at risk for hospital-acquired VTE.
"Before creating this technology, VTE identification was dependent upon manually-generated clinical lists and post-discharge case reviews, both of which are time-consuming, error-prone and do not provide immediate identification," said John Martin, senior director of enterprise analytics at CHOP. "By using NLP, we automated the process and can identify at-risk patients more quickly, with high sensitivity and specificity."
CHOP was previously recognized nationally as a finalist for a Business Innovator Award in the 2016 InformationWeek Elite 100 ranking.
For more information: www.chop.edu
May 07, 2026 
