Dialogue to Question Generation for Evidence-based Medical Guideline Agent Development
Organizations: Google Research · University of Toronto, Canada · Vector Institute, Canada · Emory University, USA
Abstract
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is central to high-quality care, but remains difficult to implement in fast-paced primary care settings. Physicians face short consultations, increasing patient loads, and lengthy guideline documents that are impractical to consult in real time. To address this gap, we investigate the feasibility of using large language models (LLMs) as ambient assistants that surface targeted, evidence-based questions during physician-patient encounters. Our study focuses on question generation rather than question answering, with the aim of scaffolding physician reasoning and integrating guideline-based practice into brief consultations. We implemented two prompting strategies, a zero-shot baseline and a multi-stage reasoning variant, using Gemini 2.5 as the backbone model. We evaluated on a benchmark of 80 de-identified transcripts from real clinical encounters, with six experienced physicians contributing over 90 hours of structured review. Results indicate that while general-purpose LLMs are not yet fully reliable, they can produce clinically meaningful and guideline-relevant questions, suggesting significant potential to reduce cognitive burden and make EBM more actionable at the point of care.
Figures & tables
| Metric | Statement |
|---|---|
| Relevance | The questions are relevant and highlight insightful aspects of the case. |
| Guideline Navigation | The questions guide me toward which specific guidelines for evidence I should consult. |
| Thought Alignment | The questions align with my own clinical reasoning or thought process, without challenging my judgment. |
| Non-Redundancy | The questions are not redundant and will not impose a cognitive burden during the visit. |
| Usefulness | I would find these questions genuinely helpful for saving time and improving my daily workflow. |
Appendix figures & tables9 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Metric | Zero-shot | Multi-stage |
|---|---|---|
| Average | 6.36 | 6.08 |
| Relevance | 6.6 | 6.2 |
| Guideline Navigation | 6.8 | 5.8 |
| Thought Alignment | 6.4 | 6.2 |
| Non-Redundancy | 5.6 | 6.2 |
| Usefulness | 6.4 | 6.0 |
| Metric | ||
|---|---|---|
| Relevance-M1 | 0.0718 | 0.2677 |
| Relevance-M2 | 0.0519 | 0.4237 |
| Guideline Navigation-M1 | 0.1190 | 0.0657 |
| Guideline Navigation-M2 | 0.0212 | 0.7439 |
| Thought Alignment-M1 | 0.0804 | 0.2145 |
| Thought Alignment-M2 | -0.0335 | 0.6055 |
| Metric | Average Spearman Correlation |
|---|---|
| Relevance | -0.013329 |
| Guideline Navigation | -0.025142 |
| Thought Alignment | 0.042234 |
| Non-Redundancy | -0.048712 |
| Usefulness | 0.014104 |
Clinical Decision Support
Clinical Decision Support uses data, medical knowledge, and AI to help clinicians assess patients and choose tests, diagnoses, and treatments.
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