Redact Clinical Notes for Research and Sharing

Free-text clinical narrative is the hardest type of PHI to redact manually. AI handles it in seconds while keeping diagnosis and treatment content intact.

Redact a PDF. Try it for free.

Select the information to redact, then import your document. Get the first page free by email. No account required.

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*During this demo, your files are securely processed and deleted immediately. Create an account for full redaction and to manage your files and settings.

Redact PDF AI de-identifies clinical notes automatically, detecting patient names, dates, and identifiers per HIPAA Safe Harbor while keeping the clinical narrative intact for research and sharing. It works on scanned and free-text notes. Review each detection, then export a flattened PDF with no recoverable PHI.

The challenge of free-text notes

Unlike structured fields, clinical notes contain PHI scattered throughout natural language: "Met with Mr. Müller on March 12 at Lausanne University Hospital." Identifying every instance manually across hundreds of pages is slow and error-prone.

When clinical-note redaction is needed

  • Sharing for second opinions or specialist consults
  • Research datasets (NLP training, retrospective studies)
  • Teaching cases for residents
  • Quality-improvement reviews across departments

Context-aware named-entity recognition

Azure AI Language uses contextual understanding to find names, places, dates, and organizations in free text. Combined with "Always Redact" patterns for institution-specific identifiers (MRN, room numbers), coverage is typically 95%+ in a single pass.

How it works

  1. 1

    Upload notes

    Discharge summaries, progress notes, consult letters — single or batch.

  2. 2

    Default PHI sweep

    Person, Date, Address, Organization, Phone, Email.

  3. 3

    Studio audit

    For research use, audit a sample before bulk processing.

  4. 4

    Download

    De-identified notes ready for external use.

For clinical research

NLP training datasets often need real clinical narrative with all PHI removed. Bulk-redact thousands of notes in batches while keeping the clinical content for model training.

Frequently asked questions

Does it handle physician names as well as patient names?

Yes — both are detected as "Person" entities. You can keep physician names visible by adding them to "Excluded Terms".

What about medical abbreviations like "BID" or "PRN"?

Abbreviations are not PII and are not masked.

Can it detect implicit identifiers (e.g., "the only liver transplant in Geneva in 2024")?

No — implicit identifiers require human judgment. Use Studio manual masks for these cases.

Ready to redact PII with simplicity?
Gain accuracy and speed compared to Adobe Acrobat and other redaction tools.