Enhancing Clinical Efficiency through LLM: Discharge Note Generation for Cardiac Patients

Abstract

Medical documentation, including discharge notes, is crucial for ensuring patient care quality, continuity, and effective medical communication. However, the manual creation of these documents is not only time-consuming but also prone to inconsistencies and potential errors. The automation of this documentation process using artificial intelligence (AI) represents a promising area of innovation in healthcare. This study directly addresses the inefficiencies and inaccuracies in creating discharge notes manually, particularly for cardiac patients, by employing AI techniques, specifically large language model (LLM). Utilizing a substantial dataset from a cardiology center, encompassing wide-ranging medical records and physician assessments, our research evaluates the capability of LLM to enhance the documentation process. Among the various models assessed, Mistral-7B distinguished itself by accurately generating discharge notes that significantly improve both documentation efficiency and the continuity of care for patients. These notes underwent rigorous qualitative evaluation by medical expert, receiving high marks for their clinical relevance, completeness, readability, and contribution to informed decision-making and care planning. Coupled with quantitative analyses, these results confirm Mistral-7B's efficacy in distilling complex medical information into concise, coherent summaries. Overall, our findings illuminate the considerable promise of specialized LLM, such as Mistral-7B, in refining healthcare documentation workflows and advancing patient care. This study lays the groundwork for further integrating advanced AI technologies in healthcare, demonstrating their potential to revolutionize patient documentation and support better care outcomes.