Clinical Scorecard: Ethical Implications of Large Language Models in Personal Health Applications

At a Glance

Key Highlights

• PH-LLMs support symptom triage, chronic disease management, and mental health check-ins.
• Deployment raises ethical concerns regarding privacy, data security, and accuracy.

Guideline-Based Recommendations

Diagnosis

Management

Monitoring & Follow-up

Risks

• Inadequate governance may lead to unsafe or misleading recommendations.
• Privacy risks due to mishandling of sensitive data.
• Potential for biased outputs amplifying health inequities.
• Psychological harm from false reassurance and poor management of emotional distress.

Patient & Prescribing Data

Individuals using PH-LLMs for health inquiries

Users may misinterpret conversational empathy as professional accountability.

Clinical Best Practices

• Implement robust governance frameworks for PH-LLM deployment.
• Ensure transparency in data usage and privacy protections.

Related Resources & Content

• World Health Organization
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act