Natural language processing, or NLP, is a technology used in many ways to help computers understand human language. This is particularly impactful in biomedical research, where hospitals have millions of unstructured notes they need to de-identify before sharing with researchers. Manually de-identifying them would put significant strain on healthcare systems, presenting an excellent use case for the application of NLP.
There are two key challenges that NLP developers currently face. One is the lack of access to biomedical data on which to test the performance of their models. Given the size and sensitivity of the data, critical patient information is typically off limits for traditional model development. Another hurdle is a lack of frameworks for assessing performance and generalizability. NLPSandbox.io can help on both fronts.
NLPSandbox.io is one of the first tool-benchmarking platforms that securely connects developers to healthcare data providers. The platform streamlines your development process and the assessment of tools that are re-usable, reproducible, portable and cloud-ready. The NLP Sandbox adopts the model-to-data architecture to enable NLP developers to assess the performance of their tools on public and private datasets. When a developer submits a tool, data partners automatically download the tool and evaluate its performance against their private data. This architecture enables our partners to fully control their data and ensure no sensitive information leaves their secure environment.