Use of Text Search to Effectively Identify Lifetime Prevalence of Suicide Attempts Among Veterans

Suicide is an important emerging problem among active duty personnel and veterans of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Suicide rates among veterans treated in the VA System are about 50% higher than in the general population, and the rate of suicide among active duty service personnel has recently exceeded the rate in the general population. Preventing suicides and providing services is a high priority for the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Administration (VA). The VA electronic medical record system stores a very large corpus of clinical notes. Application of search engine technology to a subset of this corpus demonstrated that text search confers an 8-to 10-fold improvement in the ability to identify individuals who have made prior suicide attempts. This technology is highly relevant to health care institutions that have adopted electronic medical record systems.