{"id":648896,"date":"2026-05-04T11:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648896\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T11:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:21:10","slug":"have-llms-improved-patient-outcomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648896\/","title":{"rendered":"Have LLMs improved patient outcomes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!eUgg!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffdcba01c-1594-4472-a23d-221981a1445c_1800x2003.jpeg\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img can-restack\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/fdcba01c-1594-4472-a23d-221981a1445c_1800.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"1620\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/fdcba01c-1594-4472-a23d-221981a1445c_1800x2003.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1620,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:2739957,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/garymarcus.substack.com\/i\/196345367?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffdcba01c-1594-4472-a23d-221981a1445c_1800x2003.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a>Artwork by Dave Coverly at Speedbump.com. Reprinted by perrmission.<\/p>\n<p>Cardiologist\/author <a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/users\/1923753-eric-topol?utm_source=mentions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Eric Topol&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:1923753,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6aac3e1d-17aa-405e-953b-393d7253107b_511x511.png&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;d8418e40-fe7b-4168-9108-e8af6377af54&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"MentionUser\" class=\"mention-pnpTE1\">Eric Topol<\/a> tends to be more bullish than I am about AI in medicine, but in his latest post he concludes that at least thus far there is \u201cvery little evidence for LLMs benefiting patients or doctors for health outcomes\u201d (aside from helping with administrative work and the like). <\/p>\n<p>As Topol notes, his review was partly inspired by this<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41591-026-04389-4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> recent editorial in Nature Medicine<\/a>, which points in the same direction:<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Ob-o!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fea3bfcfa-1514-4ec8-a994-c945ecbbec3a_1613x1343.png\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img can-restack\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/ea3bfcfa-1514-4ec8-a994-c945ecbbec3a_1613.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"1212\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/ea3bfcfa-1514-4ec8-a994-c945ecbbec3a_1613x1343.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1212,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:199430,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/garymarcus.substack.com\/i\/196345367?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fea3bfcfa-1514-4ec8-a994-c945ecbbec3a_1613x1343.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can read Topol\u2019s detailed review <a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/erictopol\/p\/the-paradox-of-medical-ai-implementation?r=8tdk6&amp;utm_medium=ios\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>All of this fits with my recent <a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/garymarcus\/p\/please-dont-trust-your-chatbot-for?r=8tdk6&amp;utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&amp;utm_medium=web\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please don\u2019t trust your chatbot for medical advice<\/a>,  which focused more on unsupervised use of LLMs by patients, rather than overall clinical outcomes,  but in many ways converges to a similar place.<\/p>\n<p>AI will surely someday be a major boon for medicine, but current tools such as domain-general chatbots may not be up to the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artwork by Dave Coverly at Speedbump.com. Reprinted by perrmission. Cardiologist\/author Eric Topol tends to be more bullish than&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-648896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}