Unstructured free text in electronic health records (EHR) can provide an invaluable source of information beyond structured information for medical research. Free text within EHRs may contain diagnoses, investigation results, medication side-effects, symptoms, reasons for switches in therapy and cause of death. Samir Dhalla at Cegedim and Dr. Anoop Shah at Institute of Health Informatics put forward research that shows the importance of anonymised unstructured data.