Large Language Models in Healthcare

Abstract: LLMs hold promise for transforming healthcare, from streamlining administrative and clinical workflows to enriching patient engagement and advancing clinical decision-making. However, their successful integration requires rigorous development, adaptation, and evaluation strategies tailored to clinical needs. In this Review, we highlight recent advancements, explore emerging opportunities for LLM-driven innovation, and propose a framework for their responsible implementation in healthcare settings. We examine strategies for adapting LLMs to domain-specific healthcare tasks, such as fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and multimodal integration with electronic health records. We also summarize various evaluation metrics tailored to healthcare, addressing clinical accuracy, fairness, robustness, and patient outcomes. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges associated with deploying LLMs in healthcare--including data privacy, bias mitigation, regulatory compliance, and computational sustainability--and underscore the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. Finally, these challenges present promising future research directions for advancing LLM implementation in clinical settings and healthcare.