# 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.

**Try it:** https://www.redact-pdf.ai/sign-up
**See pricing:** https://www.redact-pdf.ai/pricing

## 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. **Upload notes** — Discharge summaries, progress notes, consult letters — single or batch.
2. **Default PHI sweep** — Person, Date, Address, Organization, Phone, Email.
3. **Studio audit** — For research use, audit a sample before bulk processing.
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.

## Related guides

- https://www.redact-pdf.ai/redact/medical-records.md
- https://www.redact-pdf.ai/redact/lab-results.md
- https://www.redact-pdf.ai/redact/dates-from-pdf.md

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Primary keyword: redact clinical notes PDF
Audience: medical

Built on Microsoft Azure infrastructure (SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, HIPAA-eligible) with Swiss / EU data residency. Documents are never used to train AI models.