![[Cover photo caption (left to right): Joe Bengfort, CIO, UCSF with UC Tech Larry L. Sautter Award winner project team members, Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, Boris Oskotsky, and Gundolf Schenk]](https://cio.ucop.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/DSC05940_XavierBaileyPhotography-1-1000x668.jpg)
Learn about the exciting new health care technology behind the winning project of the 2022 Larry L. Sautter Innovation in IT Golden Award, “The De-identifying Clinical Notes at Scale Project (UCSF).” The UC IT blog team is grateful to project lead, Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, a data scientist and IT employee at Academic Research Services (ARS), Information Technology (IT) and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI), for sharing the application she submitted last year at this time, and the opportunity to learn more about her role as an IT employee and project lead. UC Tech 2023 Awards Program applications are open until May 1, 2023, apply now.
At UCSF, Radhakrishnan worked with members of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI), to create an automated clinical text de-identification pipeline to protect patient information in clinical note text and reports. It is one of the only professionally certified de-identification software for unstructured data today, and is being adopted by many other medical institutions, including UC Irvine Health and UC Davis Health.
Thanks to the coordinated work between IT and medical research teams, the BCHSI team established a new pipeline of data that is HIPAA1 compliant. “To the best of our knowledge, our de-identification pipeline, with its principal algorithm packaged as Philter V1.0, (aka Automated Clinical Notes De-Identification Pipeline) is currently the only professionally certified de-identification software for unstructured data,” said Radhakrishnan.
Atul Butte, director of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute and Chief Data Scientist for the UC Health System, added a special word of thanks to the team:
“I would like to take a moment to recognize the hard work of our faculty and staff – Bakar Institute people have won or have been nominated for quite a few awards for their innovative work and contributions. This award is given for an innovative technology project that “has had a significant beneficial impact on UC’s academic or research mission, student life, business operations, patient care or public-service mission.” Our clinical text de-identification project was seen as the most innovative and significant project across all UC submitted projects. Project members were Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, Gundolf Schenk, Kathleen Muenzen, Boris Oskotsky, Sharat Israni, and me, as well as several previous Bakar Institute staff and students. Bravo!”
About the Sautter Award for Innovation in Information Technology
The Larry L. Sautter Award for Innovation in Information Technology is given to an individual or a team for having implemented an innovative technology initiative that has had significant impact on the university’s academic/research mission, student life, business operations, patient care, or public service mission. Innovation is defined as the new application of technology, the creative use of limited resources, or an emphasis on collaboration to solve a problem.
Application Narrative
The project narrative demonstrates how they met criteria for this award, focused on innovation, in terms of complexity, impact (number of individuals impacted, and/or depth of impact), and mission-alignment. Please read the narrative on the team’s 2022 UC Tech Award application.
Project team members
- Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, Data Scientist, University of California San Francisco, Academic Research Services, Information Technology
- Gundolf Schenk, Principal Data Scientist, University of California San Francisco, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute
- Kathleen Muenzen, Intern, University of California San Francisco, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute
- Boris Oskotsky, Lead Systems Administrator, University of California San Francisco Medical Center at Parnassus, Bakar Computational Health Institute
- Sharat Israni, NIH Data Scholar & CTO, University of California San Francisco, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute; Director, Comp Health, Ctr for Precision Med, UC Davis
- Atul J. Butte, Director, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute; UCSF Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF
About the Project Lead
Lakshmi Radhakrishnan
Data scientist and IT employee
Academic Research Services (ARS), Information Technology (IT)
Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI)
About the Author:
Leevegar Kim
UC Information Technology Marketing & Communications Intern
Undergraduate Student at UC Berkeley
[Cover photo caption (left to right): Joe Bengfort, CIO, UCSF with UC Tech Larry L. Sautter Award winner project team members, Lakshmi Radhakrishnan, Boris Oskotsky, and Gundolf Schenk]