NLP Technology Has a Bright Future in Healthcare

While NLP is groundbreaking in healthcare, I point out that the technology is still poorly understood with confusion on how NLP and AI work together. Dr. O’Connell says to think of AI as a broad umbrella term for a computer that mimics things that humans do, like read notes, understand language, and communicate with one another. NLP, on the other hand, is more specific: It is the branch of computer science in which computers read and understand both human and computer-produced text.

While there are a lot of issues with speech recognition and accuracy, physicians must be able to both type and dictate their notes. For example, he says, NLP is very adept at handling complex narratives in cases where patients have pancreatic cancer.