Outpatient reception via collaboration between nurses and a large language model: a randomized controlled trial

Reception is an essential process for patients seeking medical care and a critical component influencing the healthcare experience. However, current communication systems rely mainly on human efforts, which are both labor and knowledge intensive. A promising alternative is to leverage the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to assist the communication in medical center reception sites. Here we curated a unique dataset comprising 35,418 cases of real-world conversation audio corpus between outpatients and receptionist nurses from 10 reception sites across two medical centers, to develop a site-specific prompt engineering chatbot (SSPEC). The SSPEC efficiently resolved patient queries, with a higher proportion of queries addressed in fewer rounds of queries and responses (Q&Rs; 68.0% ≤2 rounds) compared with nurse-led sessions (50.5% ≤2 rounds) (P = 0.009) across administrative, triaging and primary care concerns. We then established a nurse-SSPEC collaboration model, overseeing the uncertainties encountered during the real-world deployment. In a single-center randomized controlled trial involving 2,164 participants, the primary endpoint indicated that the nurse-SSPEC collaboration model received higher satisfaction feedback from patients (3.91 ± 0.90 versus 3.39 ± 1.15 in the nurse group, P < 0.001). Key secondary outcomes indicated reduced rate of repeated Q&R (3.2% versus 14.4% in the nurse group, P < 0.001) and reduced negative emotions during visits (2.4% versus 7.8% in the nurse group, P < 0.001) and enhanced response quality in terms of integrity (4.37 ± 0.95 versus 3.42 ± 1.22 in the nurse group, P < 0.001), empathy (4.14 ± 0.98 versus 3.27 ± 1.22 in the nurse group, P < 0.001) and readability (3.86 ± 0.95 versus 3.71 ± 1.07 in the nurse group, P = 0.006). Overall, our study supports the feasibility of integrating LLMs into the daily hospital workflow and introduces a paradigm for improving communication that benefits both patients and nurses. Chinese Clinical Trial Registry identifier: ChiCTR2300077245 .