CPGPrompt: Translating Clinical Guidelines into LLM-Executable Decision Support

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Deng, Ruiqi, Martin, Geoffrey, Wang, Tony, Zhang, Gongbo, Liu, Yi, Weng, Chunhua, Wang, Yanshan, Rousseau, Justin F, Peng, Yifan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Deng, Ruiqi
Martin, Geoffrey
Wang, Tony
Zhang, Gongbo
Liu, Yi
Weng, Chunhua
Wang, Yanshan
Rousseau, Justin F
Peng, Yifan
author_facet Deng, Ruiqi
Martin, Geoffrey
Wang, Tony
Zhang, Gongbo
Liu, Yi
Weng, Chunhua
Wang, Yanshan
Rousseau, Justin F
Peng, Yifan
contents Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) provide evidence-based recommendations for patient care; however, integrating them into Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains challenging. Previous approaches, such as rule-based systems, face significant limitations, including poor interpretability, inconsistent adherence to guidelines, and narrow domain applicability. To address this, we develop and validate CPGPrompt, an auto-prompting system that converts narrative clinical guidelines into large language models (LLMs). Our framework translates CPGs into structured decision trees and utilizes an LLM to dynamically navigate them for patient case evaluation. Synthetic vignettes were generated across three domains (headache, lower back pain, and prostate cancer) and distributed into four categories to test different decision scenarios. System performance was assessed on both binary specialty-referral decisions and fine-grained pathway-classification tasks. The binary specialty referral classification achieved consistently strong performance across all domains (F1: 0.85-1.00), with high recall (1.00 $\pm$ 0.00). In contrast, multi-class pathway assignment showed reduced performance, with domain-specific variations: headache (F1: 0.47), lower back pain (F1: 0.72), and prostate cancer (F1: 0.77). Domain-specific performance differences reflected the structure of each guideline. The headache guideline highlighted challenges with negation handling. The lower back pain guideline required temporal reasoning. In contrast, prostate cancer pathways benefited from quantifiable laboratory tests, resulting in more reliable decision-making.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_03475
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CPGPrompt: Translating Clinical Guidelines into LLM-Executable Decision Support
Deng, Ruiqi
Martin, Geoffrey
Wang, Tony
Zhang, Gongbo
Liu, Yi
Weng, Chunhua
Wang, Yanshan
Rousseau, Justin F
Peng, Yifan
Artificial Intelligence
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) provide evidence-based recommendations for patient care; however, integrating them into Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains challenging. Previous approaches, such as rule-based systems, face significant limitations, including poor interpretability, inconsistent adherence to guidelines, and narrow domain applicability. To address this, we develop and validate CPGPrompt, an auto-prompting system that converts narrative clinical guidelines into large language models (LLMs). Our framework translates CPGs into structured decision trees and utilizes an LLM to dynamically navigate them for patient case evaluation. Synthetic vignettes were generated across three domains (headache, lower back pain, and prostate cancer) and distributed into four categories to test different decision scenarios. System performance was assessed on both binary specialty-referral decisions and fine-grained pathway-classification tasks. The binary specialty referral classification achieved consistently strong performance across all domains (F1: 0.85-1.00), with high recall (1.00 $\pm$ 0.00). In contrast, multi-class pathway assignment showed reduced performance, with domain-specific variations: headache (F1: 0.47), lower back pain (F1: 0.72), and prostate cancer (F1: 0.77). Domain-specific performance differences reflected the structure of each guideline. The headache guideline highlighted challenges with negation handling. The lower back pain guideline required temporal reasoning. In contrast, prostate cancer pathways benefited from quantifiable laboratory tests, resulting in more reliable decision-making.
title CPGPrompt: Translating Clinical Guidelines into LLM-Executable Decision Support
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03475