Natural Language Processing in Healthcare: Unlocking the Potential of Clinical Data

Abstract

Natural language processing (NLP), a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), has significant potential to unlock the value of clinical data. This paper reviews the applications of NLP in healthcare, including the extraction of meaningful insights from unstructured clinical notes, patient records, and medical literature. We discuss how NLP enhances clinical decision-making, patient management, and medical research. Case studies demonstrate improvements in disease surveillance, risk stratification, and treatment planning. The paper also addresses challenges such as data quality, language variability, and computational requirements, providing recommendations for optimizing NLP applications in healthcare.