EMERSE (Electronic Medical Record Search Engine) allows users to search free text (unstructured) clinical notes from the electronic health record. It can be thought of like "Google" for clinical notes. The tool was developed at the University of Michigan in 2005; UNC-Chapel Hill launched EMERSE in October 2017. EMERSE can support a variety of tasks, including clinical and translational research, internal quality improvement and quality assurance initiatives, as well as hospital operational support tasks.

NC TraCS provides 60-minute, in-person training sessions for EMERSE. Attendance at the training session is a prerequisite for using EMERSE. The training will cover how what EMERSE is, how EMERSE works, and how to use EMERSE appropriately.

Registration is required.

Learn more about EMERSE at tracs.unc.edu/emerse

Regulatory requirements:

All searches in EMERSE must have a definitive purpose related to a predetermined operational, quality improvement, or research need. All EMERSE users will be required to attest a purpose for each EMERSE session. Research users will be able to select from a list of applicable IRBs. Note that your IRBs will only be available in EMERSE if they (1) are currently approved and active, and (2) have requested and received a waiver of HIPAA in section D.3 or have requested and received a partial waiver of HIPAA in section B.2. Operational users will also have the opportunity to note a purpose in a free text field. We ask that operational users include a clear and definitive purpose for their session (e.g., project title).

Students requesting access to EMERSE must be paid employees/interns etc. (i.e., in UNC's HR system). If you have any questions please contact us at emerse@listserv.unc.edu.