$1.5M R01 Grant Awarded to Use LLMs to Improve Patient Understanding of Medical Information

Dr. Adam Rodman (ARISE / Harvard Medical School), together with Dr. Sigall Bell (OpenNotes / Harvard Medical School), has received a $1.5 million, four-year R01 award from the National Library of Medicine.

The project will develop HealthCoach, a bilingual AI tool to help patients gain actionable insights from their medical notes and prepare for their next primary care visit.

HealthCoach

HealthCoach will use large language models (LLMs) to help patients:

• Simplify and explain clinical notes in English and Spanish
• Help patients identify key concerns, questions, and health priorities
• Support co-generation of a “pre-note” that reflects patient values and can be shared with clinicians before a visit

The tool will embed a previously developed patient-clinician alignment framework (OurDX), enabling patients to surface information such as recent test results, data from other health systems, or missed safety issues that clinicians may miss.

Study Design

• Patient co-design through focus groups in two states to define HealthCoach features and outputs
• Iterative development using de-identified clinical notes in a HIPAA-compliant environment
• Standardized assessments of AI-generated notes across domains such as accuracy, clarity, and usefulness, rated by both patients and clinicians
• Live testing with English- and Spanish-preferring patients preparing for upcoming primary care visits

Outcomes will focus on patient engagement and learning, documentation quality and safety, and feasibility/acceptability of AI tools for diverse populations.

Significance

Despite federal requirements for access to electronic medical notes, millions of patients remain unable to use them effectively due to language or literacy barriers.

Prior research has shown that reading notes improves patient understanding, adherence, and safety, but access gaps persist. This study will test whether an AI-enabled tool can reduce these gaps and strengthen patient-clinician alignment.

As part of the ARISE Network, Dr. Rodman will lead efforts from Harvard Medical School to incorporate social science expertise into the design and evaluation of HealthCoach. This R01 expands ARISE’s portfolio of studies focused on evaluating how AI tools perform in real-world clinical contexts.

About the National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the world’s largest biomedical library. Since 1836, NLM has advanced biomedical discovery, healthcare, and public health by providing trusted health information resources and supporting innovation in medical research and practice.

Full announcement: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/dI_EpisrmUGzA271ozWuyA/project-details/11228028#description