NLM Scrubber: NLM s Software Application to De-identify Clinical Text Documents
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02795806. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
NLM Scrubber: NLM's Software Application to De-identify Clinical Text Documents
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Background: Electronic health records contain a vast amount of data about diseases and treatments. Researchers could use this data to test their ideas, but they would need to use records from more than just their own group of patients. But access to those records is restricted to ensure patient privacy. U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) has created a computer tool called NLM Scrubber. This program recognizes and deletes personal information from health records. The researchers who developed this program now need access to the original records. This will allow them to see how well the program removes personal information from patient records and how they can make it more accurate. Objectives: To find ways to improve clinical text de-identification. Eligibility: No new participants. Researchers will review data that have already been collected. Design: Researchers will collect a random sample of reports. These will be from different doctors in different fields. Researchers will manually remove personal information from the records. Researchers will also automatically remove personal information from original records using NLM-Scrubber. Researchers will compare the results of the computer program versus the manual changes. They will note when the program has not been removing personal information correctly. They will also note when the program has been deleting nonpersonal health information incorrectly. Researchers will use the results to revise the program. They will keep testing it until the de-identification process is complete.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02795806
- Recruitment status
- Enrolling by invitation
- Study type
- Observational
- Phase
- Not listed
- Enrollment
- 50,000 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
Not listed
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 1 Day and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- May 25, 2016 (Type not available)
- Primary completion
- Jan 31, 2027 (Estimated)
- Completion
- Jan 31, 2027 (Estimated)
- Last update posted
- Aug 27, 2026
2016 – 2027
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Library of Medicine | Bethesda | Maryland | — | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02795806, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Aug 27, 2026 · Synced Oct 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete public registry record, listed eligibility criteria, and available contact information for NCT02795806 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.