Leveraging Large Language Models for Efficient Triage of Mental Health Referrals in the UK National Health Service

Conceitos Básicos

Large language models can be effectively leveraged to assist clinicians in triaging mental health referrals by ingesting and processing unstructured electronic health record data, enabling efficient allocation of patients to appropriate specialist teams.

Resumo

The content discusses the use of large language models (LLMs) to assist clinicians in triaging mental health referrals in the UK National Health Service (NHS). Key highlights:

The NHS faces long waiting lists for specialist mental healthcare, with between 370,000 and 470,000 new referrals per month. Clinicians must triage these referrals using the patient's electronic health record (EHR) data.

Unstructured, narrative clinical notes in EHRs pose a challenge for efficient triage, as they require clinical expertise to parse and interpret. LLMs can be leveraged to process this unstructured data and assist in triage decisions.

Three different approaches are presented for ingesting variable-length EHR data into LLMs: a "brute force" document-level approach, a concatenated sequence approach, and a segment-and-batch approach. The segment-and-batch approach demonstrates the best performance.

The proposed LLM-based triage assistance system is designed to be resource-efficient, running on a single GPU, and can provide interpretable recommendations to clinicians by highlighting the evidence from the EHR data that drives the triage decision.

Evaluation shows the LLM-based triage assistance can achieve high accuracy, F1 score, precision, and recall in recommending the appropriate specialist mental healthcare team for a given referral.

Estatísticas

Between 370,000 and 470,000 new referrals into secondary mental healthcare services in the UK NHS each month.
The number of tokens (words) in patient EHR instances ranged between 300 and 50,000.
The median length of EHR instances resulting in accepted referrals was 1367 tokens, and for non-accepted referrals was 1463 tokens.
Across all individual documents, the median length was 120 tokens (IQR=155), and for instances (concatenations of documents), the median token length was 1323 (IQR: 3229).

Citações

"A significant problem for the the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) are the long waiting lists for specialist mental healthcare. According to NHS data [1], in each month of 2023, there were between 370,000 and 470,000 individual new referrals into secondary mental healthcare services."
"The ability to efficiently recommend a relevant team by ingesting potentially voluminous clinical notes could help services both reduce referral waiting times and with the right technology, improve the evidence available to justify triage decisions."

Principais Insights Extraídos De

Bespoke Large Language Models for Digital Triage Assistance in Mental Health Care

by Niall Taylor... às arxiv.org 04-01-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.19790.pdf

Perguntas Mais Profundas

How could the LLM-based triage assistance system be further improved to better align with clinicians' decision-making processes and practices?

In order to better align the LLM-based triage assistance system with clinicians' decision-making processes and practices, several improvements can be considered:

Incorporating Clinical Guidelines: The system could be enhanced by integrating established clinical guidelines and protocols into the decision-making process. This would ensure that the recommendations provided by the LLM align closely with evidence-based practices followed by clinicians.

Feedback Mechanism: Implementing a feedback mechanism where clinicians can provide input on the system's recommendations would help in refining the model over time. This iterative process of feedback and adjustment can lead to a more accurate and clinically relevant triage system.

Interpretability: Enhancing the interpretability of the LLM's decisions is crucial for clinicians to trust and understand the recommendations. Providing explanations for why a certain triage decision was made can help clinicians validate and contextualize the system's outputs.

Domain-Specific Training: Further training the LLM on a larger and more diverse dataset of mental health EHRs can improve its understanding of nuanced clinical language and scenarios, leading to more accurate triage recommendations.

Collaboration with Clinicians: Involving clinicians in the development and validation of the system from the outset can ensure that it reflects real-world clinical scenarios and challenges. Clinician input can help tailor the system to meet their specific needs and workflows.

How can the potential ethical concerns around the use of LLMs in mental healthcare triage be addressed?

The use of LLMs in mental healthcare triage raises several ethical concerns that need to be addressed to ensure responsible and ethical deployment:

Transparency and Explainability: It is essential to make the decision-making process of the LLM transparent and explainable to clinicians and patients. Providing clear explanations for the recommendations generated by the system can help build trust and ensure accountability.

Data Privacy and Security: Safeguarding patient data is paramount. Implementing robust data security measures, such as encryption, access controls, and anonymization techniques, can protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or breaches.

Bias and Fairness: LLMs are susceptible to biases present in the training data, which can lead to unfair or discriminatory outcomes. Regular bias audits, diverse training data, and bias mitigation strategies can help address these issues and ensure equitable triage decisions.

Informed Consent: Patients should be informed about the use of LLMs in their care and have the opportunity to consent to the use of their data for triage purposes. Respecting patient autonomy and privacy rights is crucial in maintaining ethical standards.

Regulatory Compliance: Adhering to relevant data protection regulations and guidelines, such as GDPR and HIPAA, is essential to ensure legal compliance and protect patient rights.

How could the insights gained from developing this LLM-based triage system be applied to improve other aspects of mental healthcare delivery in the NHS?

The insights gained from developing the LLM-based triage system can be leveraged to enhance various aspects of mental healthcare delivery in the NHS:

Personalized Treatment Plans: By analyzing patient EHR data with LLMs, personalized treatment plans can be developed based on individual patient histories, symptoms, and responses to interventions. This tailored approach can improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Early Intervention Strategies: LLMs can be used to identify early warning signs or risk factors for mental health conditions, enabling healthcare providers to intervene proactively and prevent escalation of symptoms.

Resource Allocation: Data-driven insights from LLMs can help optimize resource allocation in mental healthcare services, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently to meet patient needs and reduce waiting times.

Quality Improvement Initiatives: Analyzing LLM-generated insights on triage decisions and patient outcomes can inform quality improvement initiatives in mental healthcare services, leading to better care delivery and patient experiences.

Research and Innovation: The development and deployment of LLM-based systems can contribute to research advancements in mental health, fostering innovation in treatment approaches, diagnostic methods, and care delivery models.