ChatMyopia: An AI Agent for Pre-consultation Education in Primary Eye Care Settings

Funding The study was supported by the Start - up Fund for RAPs under the Strategic Hiring Scheme (P0048623) from HKSAR, the Global STEM Professorship Scheme (P0046113) and Henry G. Leong Endowed Professorship in Elderly Vision Health. 2 Abstract Large language models (LLMs) show promise for tailored healthcare communication but face challenges in interpretability and multi - task integration particularly for domain - specific needs like myopia, a nd their real - world effectiveness as patient education tools has yet to be demonstrated . Here, we introduce ChatMyopia, an LLM - based AI agent designed to address text and image - based inquiries related to myopia. To achieve this, ChatMyopia integrates an image classification tool and a retrieval - augmented knowledge base built from literature, expert consensus, and clinical guidelines. M yopic maculopathy grading task, single question examination and human evaluations validated its ability to deliver personalized, accurate, and safe responses to myopia - related inquirie s with high scalability and interpretability . In a randomized controlled trial (n=70, NCT06607822), ChatMyopia significantly improved patient satisfaction compared to traditional leaflets, enhancing patient education in accuracy, empathy, disease awareness, and patient - eye care practitioner communication. These findings highlight ChatMyopia ' s potential as a valuable supplement to enhance patient education and improve satisfaction with medical services in primary eye care settings . Keywords: Large language model, Medical a gent, Myopia, Patient education, Randomized controlled trial. Introduction For patients, a lack of basic understanding of their condition before initial consultations can hinder communication, as clinicians may spend time explaining fundamental concepts instead of critical issues, resulting in poor decisions and noncompliance [1, 2] . Therefore, patients require professional information and support to enhance their healthcare experiences.