Learning Embeddings from Free-text Triage Notes using Pretrained Transformer Models

: The advent of transformer models has allowed for tremendous progress in the Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain. Pretrained transformers could successfully deliver the state-of-the-art performance in a myriad of NLP tasks. This study presents an application of transformers to learn contextual embeddings from free-text triage notes, widely recorded at the emergency department. A large-scale retrospective cohort of triage notes of more than 260K records was provided by the University Hospital of Amiens-Picardy in France. We utilize a set of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) for the French language. The quality of embeddings is empirically examined based on a set of clustering models. In this regard, we provide a comparative analysis of popular models including CamemBERT , FlauBERT , and mBART . The study could be generally regarded as an addition to the ongoing contributions of applying the BERT approach in the healthcare context.