Transforming Healthcare Education: Harnessing Large Language Models for Frontline Health Worker Capacity Building using Retrieval-Augmented Generation

In recent years, large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a transformative force in several domains, including medical education and healthcare. This paper presents a case study on the practical application of using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) based models for enhancing healthcare education in low- and middle-income countries. The model described in this paper, SMART health GPT, stems from the necessity for accessible and locally relevant medical information to aid community health workers in delivering high-quality maternal care. We describe the development process of the complete RAG pipeline, including the creation of a knowledge base of Indian pregnancy-related guidelines, knowledge embedding retrieval, parameter selection and optimization, and answer generation. This case study highlights the potential of LLMs in building frontline healthcare worker capacity and enhancing guideline-based health education; and offers insights for similar applications in resource-limited settings. It serves as a reference for machine learning scientists, educators, healthcare professionals, and policymakers aiming to harness the power of LLMs for substantial educational improvement. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Equitable AI. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of BMGF. The funder has no role in the study design, data collection, management, analysis and interpretation; writing or the report; and decisions related to publication and presentation of findings. The authors declare no financial interests. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors