Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38413730›Full record

ArticleNature medicine2024

Adapted large language models can outperform medical experts in clinical text summarization.

Dave Van Veen, Cara Van Uden, Louis Blankemeier, Jean-Benoit Delbrouck, Asad Aali, Christian Bluethgen, Anuj Pareek, Malgorzata Polacin, Eduardo Pontes Reis, Anna Seehofnerová and 9 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature medicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 384 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
384citing papers in PubMed, 4 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

384 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  5. Trial
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  7. From patient notes to prognostication: The revolutionary potential of event-based foundation models in orthopaedics.Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA · 2026
    Article
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  10. The consensus-based CINEX guideline for reporting clinical information extraction studies.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2026
    Article
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  20. Artificial intelligence in clinical genetics: Current practice and attitudes among the clinical genetics workforce.Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics · 2026
    Article

324 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

19 authors.

Dave Van VeenDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. vanveen@stanford.edu.ORCID 0000-0001-9312-1773
Cara Van UdenStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
Louis BlankemeierDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Jean-Benoit DelbrouckStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
Asad AaliDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
Christian BluethgenStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-7321-5676
Anuj PareekStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-1526-3685
Malgorzata PolacinDiagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Eduardo Pontes ReisStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
Anna SeehofnerováDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Nidhi RohatgiDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4574-0283
Poonam HosamaniDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
William CollinsDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-0974-2599
Neera AhujaDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Curtis P LanglotzStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-8972-8051
Jason HomDepartment of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Sergios GatidisStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
John PaulyDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Akshay S ChaudhariStanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, Palo Alto, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-3667-6796

Funding

Rapid MRI for Evaluation of OsteoarthritisR01EB002524 · NIBIB · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI Akshay Chaudhari, Garry E Gold · 2003 to 2026
$10.1M
TR&D Project 3: OpenSim for PredictionP41EB027060 · NIBIB · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI Joy P Ku · 2020 to 2026
$9.7M
RADX TECH - CERES NANOSCIENCE INC NANOTRAP PARTICLE MANUFACTURING75N92020C00021 · NHLBI · CERES NANOSCIENCES, LLLP · PI DUNLAP, ROSS · 2021 to 2021
$4.0M
Rapid Low-Cost Quantitative 3D MRI and Gait Assessment of the KneeR01AR077604 · NIAMS · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI HARGREAVES, BRIAN ANDREW · 2020 to 2024
$3.2M
Radiomics approach to engineering an artificial intelligence based echocardiography platform to predict cardiovascular surgery and heart failure outcomes.R01HL157235 · NHLBI · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI William Hiesinger · 2022 to 2026
$3.1M
Imaging of Joint Response to Physiological Stress with Age, Sex and in OsteoarthritisR01AR079431 · NIAMS · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI Feliks Kogan · 2022 to 2026
$2.9M
Opportunistic Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Estimation at Abdominal CTs with Robust and Unbiased Deep LearningR01HL167974 · NHLBI · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI Imon Banerjee, Akshay Chaudhari · 2023 to 2026
$2.4M
Novel Incidental Calcium Evaluation (NICE)R01HL169345 · NHLBI · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI Imon Banerjee, Akshay Chaudhari · 2024 to 2026
$2.1M
Population-level Pulmonary Embolism Outcome Prediction with Imaging and Clinical Data: A Multi-Center StudyR01HL155410 · NHLBI · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI LANGLOTZ, CURTIS P, SHAH, NIGAM H · 2021 to 2024
$2.1M
Adaptation and pilot implementation of a validated, electronic real time clinical decision support tool for care of Pneumonia patients in 12 Utah Urgent Care CentersR18HS026886 · AHRQ · IHC HEALTH SERVICES, INC. · PI DEAN, NATHAN C · 2020 to 2022
$1.3M
AHRQ HHS R18 HS026886NHLBI NIH HHS 75N92020C00008NHLBI NIH HHS 75N92020C00021NHLBI NIH HHS R01 HL155410NHLBI NIH HHS R01 HL157235NHLBI NIH HHS R01 HL167974NHLBI NIH HHS R01 HL169345NIAMS NIH HHS R01 AR077604NIAMS NIH HHS R01 AR079431NIBIB NIH HHS P41 EB027060NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB002524
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Analyzing vast textual data and summarizing key information from electronic health records imposes a substantial burden on how clinicians allocate their time. Although large language models (LLMs) have shown promise in natural language processing (NLP) tasks, their effectiveness on a diverse range of clinical summarization tasks remains unproven. Here we applied adaptation methods to eight LLMs, spanning four distinct clinical summarization tasks: radiology reports, patient questions, progress notes and doctor-patient dialogue. Quantitative assessments with syntactic, semantic and conceptual NLP metrics reveal trade-offs between models and adaptation methods. A clinical reader study with 10 physicians evaluated summary completeness, correctness and conciseness; in most cases, summaries from our best-adapted LLMs were deemed either equivalent (45%) or superior (36%) compared with summaries from medical experts. The ensuing safety analysis highlights challenges faced by both LLMs and medical experts, as we connect errors to potential medical harm and categorize types of fabricated information. Our research provides evidence of LLMs outperforming medical experts in clinical text summarization across multiple tasks. This suggests that integrating LLMs into clinical workflows could alleviate documentation burden, allowing clinicians to focus more on patient care.

Indexed as

DocumentationSemanticsElectronic Health RecordsHumansNatural Language ProcessingPhysician-Patient Relations

Identifiers

PMID38413730
PMCPMC11479659

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.