Searching the PDF Haystack: Automated Knowledge Discovery in Scanned EHR Documents.

Background: Clinicians express concern that they may be unaware of important information contained in voluminous scanned and other outside documents contained in electronic health records (EHRs). An example is "unrecognized EHR risk factor information," defined as risk factors for heritable cancer that exist within a patient's EHR but are not known by current treating providers. In a related study using manual EHR chart review, we found that half of the women whose EHR contained risk factor information meet criteria for further genetic risk evaluation for heritable forms of breast and ovarian cancer.