ColaCare: Enhancing Electronic Health Record Modeling through Large Language Model-Driven Multi-Agent Collaboration

Abstract: We introduce ColaCare, a framework that enhances Electronic Health Record (EHR) modeling through multi-agent collaboration driven by LLMs. Our approach seamlessly integrates domain-specific expert models with LLMs to bridge the gap between structured EHR data and text-based reasoning. Inspired by the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) approach used in clinical settings, ColaCare employs two types of agents: DoctorAgents and a MetaAgent, which collaboratively analyze patient data. Expert models process and generate predictions from numerical EHR data, while LLM agents produce reasoning references and decision-making reports within the MDT-driven collaborative consultation framework. The MetaAgent orchestrates the discussion, facilitating consultations and evidence-based debates among DoctorAgents, simulating diverse expertise in clinical decision-making. We additionally incorporate the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy (MSD) medical guideline within a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) module for medical evidence support, addressing the challenge of knowledge currency. Extensive experiments conducted on three EHR datasets demonstrate ColaCare's superior performance in clinical mortality outcome and readmission prediction tasks, underscoring its potential to revolutionize clinical decision support systems and advance personalized precision medicine. All code, case studies and a questionnaire are available at the project website: https://colacare.netlify.app.