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A-Life Medical to Provide NCI Automated Text Mining

A-Life Medical Inc, a leader in advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) for the medical industry, announced that it is a member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Shared Pathology Informatics Network (SPIN) Grant team led by the Regenstrief Institute -- Indiana University School of Medicine. A-Life will develop a text mining application to abstract pathology relevant information from free-text radiology reports.

The NCI Request for Applications states: "The objective of this initiative for a Shared Pathology Informatics Network is to create a model Web-based system to access data related to (de-identified,) archived human (pathology) specimens at multiple institutions. The (de-identified) data to be accessed will be derived from existing medical databases. The ability to automatically access information from medical databases is the first step toward the long-term goal of developing informatics systems to support NCI's efforts to improve researchers' access to human specimens and clinical data ... In addition to improving access to clinical data, the system is expected to provide researchers with the means to quickly identify and determine the availability of archived specimens with defined characteristics."

The complete text of the RFA can be viewed on the Web at grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-CA-01-006.html.

The SPIN Indianapolis/Pittsburgh consortium, led by Dr. Clement J. McDonald, director of the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care and Regenstrief Professor at Indiana University, consists of members from the six major Indianapolis hospital systems that form the Indianapolis Network for Patient Care and the University of Pittsburgh hospitals. The NCI also funded a second consortium consisting of Harvard University and UCLA hospitals. The SPIN text mining effort is led by Daniel T. Heinze, Ph.D., co-founder and chief technology officer of A-Life Medical Inc.

"There is a great deal of interest and excitement in the market for A-Life's automated coding and clinical text mining products. Our participation in the SPIN grant will both enhance our medical business oriented products and capabilities and provide valuable tools to the medical research community," said Heinze. "We are pleased and honored to be a part of this effort."

About A-Life Medical Inc

A-Life Medical Inc is a leader in advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and provides innovative NLP-based productivity solutions for the medical industry. A-Life provides products for medical coding (emergency medicine and radiology) and clinical text mining. Founded in 1996, A-Life is privately held and based in San Diego. For more information on A-Life and its products, call 858-268-9999 or visit A-Life at www.alifemedical.com.

About Regenstrief Institute for Health Care

The mission of the Community of Scholars of the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care is to conduct research to improve health care by improving the capture, analysis, content and delivery of the information needed by patients, their health care providers and policy makers and to conduct intervention studies designed to measure the effect of the application of this research on the efficiency and quality of health care. For more information, visit Regenstrief at www.regenstrief.org.

Contact A-Life Medical Inc San Diego, Daniel T. Heinze, Ph.D., 858-268-9999 x3006, dheinze@alifemedical.com.