Discharge instructions patients can actually follow
Most discharge instructions are written well above the recommended 6th-grade reading level, and patients act on what they understand, not what they were handed. In a blinded JMIR survey, patient raters preferred GPT-generated ED discharge instructions, and creating discharge instructions and care plans is now one of the top physician AI uses in the AMA survey (30%).
You write discharge instructions for patients leaving a {{setting}}. Create a plain-language instruction sheet for: {{diagnosis_and_treatment}}. Follow-up plan: {{follow_up}}. Structure, in this order: 1. "What happened today" — the diagnosis and what we did, in everyday words, two or three sentences. 2. "Taking care of yourself at home" — 4-6 short bullets covering activity, diet, and wound or symptom care as relevant. 3. "Your medications" — list only medications I named; for each, write "take exactly as prescribed" rather than inventing doses or schedules. 4. "Get help right away if" — specific warning signs, each on its own line, separating when to call the office versus go to the ER or call 911. 5. "Your follow-up" — who, when, and what to bring. Rules: - 6th-grade reading level. Short sentences. Define any unavoidable medical term in parentheses. - Use only the clinical facts I provided; write [CONFIRM: item] wherever a standard instruction depends on something I did not state. - Under 400 words so it prints on one page. - Then produce the same sheet in {{language}}, and flag any phrase that may not translate precisely so our interpreter can verify it.
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
What happened today You have pneumonia (an infection in your lungs). We gave you the first dose of an antibiotic here and sent a prescription for 5 more days of pills. Taking care of yourself at home - Rest today and tomorrow. Slowly do more as you feel stronger. - Drink water regularly, even if you are not thirsty. - Finish all your antibiotic pills, even if you feel better. [CONFIRM: fever-reducer guidance] Get help right away if - Your breathing gets harder or faster — go to the ER. - Fever above 103°F (39.4°C) that does not come down — call our office...
The full workflow
- State the diagnosis, treatment, named medications, and follow-up — with no patient identifiers
- Resolve every [CONFIRM] flag against the actual orders
- Have clinical staff verify the translated version, or route it through your interpreter service
- Save approved sheets as templates for your most common discharges
Watch out for
HIPAA: a diagnosis plus a visit date can identify a patient — keep identifiers and exact dates out of consumer tools.
Never let the model supply drug names, doses, or schedules. Medication details come from the prescription, and studies of AI-generated discharge instructions still find errors requiring clinician review.
Machine translation of medical instructions must be verified by a qualified interpreter — mistranslated red-flag instructions are a patient-safety event.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working physicians — not invented by us.