This informal CPD article ‘Effective AI prompts for healthcare tasks: A practical guide’ was provided by Michelle Guillemard, Founder of Health AI CPD, an organisation providing evidence-based training to help health professionals effectively integrate AI into their workplaces.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly becoming part of healthcare communication, administration and content creation. To get the most from these tools, you need to know how to write effective prompts that guide AI to deliver useful, accurate and relevant results.
This guide offers practical prompt ideas across a range of healthcare tasks, with examples and explanations to help you customise your own prompts with confidence. Whether you’re involved in patient communication, clinical documentation, research, or practice management, well-crafted prompts can save you time and improve the quality of your work.
1. Patient communication
Clear communication with patients is essential for trust and understanding. AI can help by simplifying complex medical information or crafting supportive messages.
Example:
Prompt: “Describe [medical condition] in clear, everyday language for someone who was recently diagnosed. Keep the explanation within 200 words.”
What AI does: Simplifies complex concepts into accessible language, helping patients better understand their condition.
Example:
Prompt: “Write a brief, reassuring message for a patient worried about medication side effects for [medical condition], in under 150 words.”
What AI does: Generates empathetic, factual responses to ease patient anxiety.
2. Clinical documentation and non-clinical writing
AI can support a range of non-clinical writing tasks that help healthcare teams stay informed, organised and efficient.
Example 1: Staff communications
Prompt: “Draft a monthly newsletter update for clinic staff covering recent policy changes and upcoming training sessions, keeping it friendly and informative in under 300 words.”
What AI does: Generates clear, engaging internal communications to keep your team informed and connected.
Example 2: Meeting agendas
Prompt: “Create an agenda for a staff meeting focused on improving patient flow and reducing wait times, including time allocations for each topic.”
What AI does: Produces structured agendas that help meetings stay focused and productive.
Example 3: Training materials
Prompt: “Write a brief overview of new data privacy regulations for healthcare workers, highlighting key points in accessible language under 200 words.”
What AI does: Creates clear and concise training content to help staff understand important compliance requirements.
Example 4: Internal reports
Prompt: “Summarise the clinic’s monthly performance data, including patient volumes and appointment no-shows, in a clear and concise report for management.”
What AI does: Automates report writing to save time and improve accuracy in sharing key operational metrics.
3. Medical research
AI tools can summarise research articles, propose research topics or help prepare abstracts, helping you stay current and productive.
Example:
Prompt: “Summarise a recent research article on [medical condition] in under 500 words.”
What AI does: Distils complex research into a clear summary for quick understanding.
4. Practice management and operations
Streamline workflows and improve patient experience by asking AI to generate checklists, schedules or strategies tailored to your medical practice.
Example:
Prompt: “Create a checklist for onboarding new staff in a medical practice, including orientation topics and training schedules.”
What AI does: Produces detailed, actionable lists to improve administrative efficiency.
5. Public health and prevention
Develop targeted campaigns or strategies using AI to promote healthy behaviours and evaluate interventions.
Example:
Prompt: “Design a public health campaign to raise awareness about [medical condition] and its prevention in 250 words.”
What AI does: Creates focused messaging to educate and encourage preventive care.
Why keep these prompts handy?
You don’t need to memorise these examples. Instead, use them as a starting point to inspire your own customised prompts based on the specific healthcare work you do. Effective prompt writing in healthcare is a skill that takes time to master, but with practice, AI can become a powerful ally in your daily tasks, helping you communicate clearly, document efficiently and support better patient outcomes.
The above examples can be a useful guide as you begin to integrate AI prompting techniques into your workflow. Revisit and adapt these prompts whenever you need a boost in productivity or clarity.
By approaching AI with thoughtful, specific prompts, you can unlock its full potential in healthcare settings, improving both the quality and efficiency of your work.
We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Health AI CPD, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.
