Written by New paper out in JAMIA, co-authored with PhD student in the lab KJ Krause along with Vanderbilt medical students Alex Gimeno and Starina D’Souza. The aim of this study was to assess the completeness and readability of generative pre-trained transformer-4 (GPT-4)-generated discharge instructions at prespecified reading levels for common pediatric emergency room complaints.
English-language GPT-generated discharge instructions contained a significantly higher proportion of must-include discharge instructions than those in Spanish (English: mean (standard error of the mean) = 62% (3%), Spanish: 53% (3%), P = .02). In the fifth-grade and eighth-grade level conditions, there was no significant difference between English and Spanish outputs in completeness. Readability did not differ across languages.
GPT-4 produced readable discharge instructions in English and Spanish while modulating document reading level. Discharge instructions in English tended to have higher completeness than those in Spanish. Future research in prompt engineering and GPT-4 performance, both generally and in multiple languages, is needed to reduce potential for health disparities by language and reading level.
Walsh Science 