LLM Evaluation in Production: Achieving 98% Accuracy in Healthcare

When building LLM-powered systems for healthcare, accuracy isn't just a nice-to-have metric—it's a life-or-death requirement. At Mantys Healthcare AI, we've developed a comprehensive evaluation framework that achieves 98% accuracy for medical data extraction while reducing manual verification work by 80%. Here's the technical deep-dive into how we built it.

The Healthcare Evaluation Challenge

Healthcare data extraction presents unique challenges that standard NLP benchmarks don't address:

Data Complexity

Unstructured formats: Medical records, insurance documents, clinical notes
Domain-specific terminology: Medical codes, drug names, procedure descriptions
Contextual nuances: Similar symptoms with different implications
Regulatory requirements: HIPAA compliance, audit trails

Accuracy Requirements

Unlike consumer applications where 85-90% accuracy might be acceptable, healthcare demands:

Critical field extraction: Copay amounts, eligibility dates, coverage details
Zero tolerance for certain errors: Patient safety-related information
Regulatory compliance: Documented accuracy for audit purposes
Financial impact: Errors directly affect revenue and patient costs

Our Evaluation Framework Architecture

We built our system using a multi-layered approach combining automated evaluation with human oversight.

Core Components

class HealthcareEvaluationFramework:
    def __init__(self):
        self.cove_evaluator = CoveEvaluator()
        self.gevals_framework = GevalsFramework()
        self.log_analyzer = LogValuesAnalyzer()
        self.domain_validator = HealthcareDomainValidator()
        self.human_reviewer = HumanReviewSystem()

    def evaluate_extraction(self, document, extracted_data):
        # Multi-stage evaluation pipeline
        results = {}

        # Stage 1: Automated evaluation
        results['cove_score'] = self.cove_evaluator.evaluate(document, extracted_data)
        results['gevals_metrics'] = self.gevals_framework.compute_metrics(extracted_data)
        results['log_values'] = self.log_analyzer.analyze(extracted_data)

        # Stage 2: Domain-specific validation
        results['domain_validation'] = self.domain_validator.validate(extracted_data)

        # Stage 3: Human review (for edge cases)
        if results['confidence'] < self.threshold:
            results['human_review'] = self.human_reviewer.queue_for_review(document, extracted_data)

        return results

Cove: Comprehensive Evaluation for Healthcare

Cove (Comprehensive Output Verification and Evaluation) became our primary automated evaluation tool for several reasons:

Key Advantages

Domain adaptability: Can be fine-tuned for healthcare-specific metrics
Explainability: Provides detailed reasoning for evaluation scores
Scalability: Handles large volumes of documents efficiently
Integration: Easy API integration with our existing pipeline

Implementation Details

class CoveEvaluator:
    def __init__(self, model_config):
        self.model = load_cove_model(model_config)
        self.healthcare_schema = HealthcareSchema()

    def evaluate(self, source_document, extracted_data):
        # Prepare evaluation context
        context = {
            'document_type': self.identify_document_type(source_document),
            'expected_fields': self.healthcare_schema.get_required_fields(),
            'extraction_confidence': extracted_data.get('confidence', 0.0)
        }

        # Run Cove evaluation
        evaluation = self.model.evaluate(
            source=source_document,
            extraction=extracted_data,
            context=context
        )

        return self.process_cove_results(evaluation)

    def process_cove_results(self, evaluation):
        return {
            'accuracy_score': evaluation.accuracy,
            'completeness_score': evaluation.completeness,
            'consistency_score': evaluation.consistency,
            'confidence_interval': evaluation.confidence_interval,
            'field_level_scores': evaluation.field_scores,
            'explanation': evaluation.reasoning
        }

Healthcare-Specific Adaptations

We customized Cove for healthcare by:

Medical terminology training: Fine-tuned on healthcare-specific vocabulary
Context-aware evaluation: Understanding medical relationships and dependencies
Regulatory alignment: Ensuring evaluations align with healthcare compliance requirements

Gevals: Generative Evaluation at Scale

Gevals provided our framework for systematic, large-scale evaluation:

Core Metrics Implementation

class GevalsFramework:
    def __init__(self):
        self.metrics = {
            'accuracy': AccuracyMetric(),
            'completeness': CompletenessMetric(),
            'consistency': ConsistencyMetric(),
            'clinical_relevance': ClinicalRelevanceMetric(),
            'regulatory_compliance': ComplianceMetric()
        }

    def compute_metrics(self, extracted_data):
        results = {}

        for metric_name, metric in self.metrics.items():
            try:
                score = metric.compute(extracted_data)
                results[metric_name] = {
                    'score': score,
                    'details': metric.get_details(),
                    'confidence': metric.get_confidence()
                }
            except Exception as e:
                results[metric_name] = {'error': str(e)}

        # Compute composite score
        results['composite_score'] = self.calculate_composite_score(results)

        return results

    def calculate_composite_score(self, metric_results):
        # Weighted average based on healthcare priorities
        weights = {
            'accuracy': 0.35,
            'completeness': 0.25,
            'consistency': 0.20,
            'clinical_relevance': 0.15,
            'regulatory_compliance': 0.05
        }

        weighted_sum = sum(
            weights[metric] * results['score']
            for metric, results in metric_results.items()
            if 'score' in results
        )

        return weighted_sum / sum(weights.values())

Custom Healthcare Metrics

We developed healthcare-specific metrics:

Clinical Relevance Metric

class ClinicalRelevanceMetric:
    def __init__(self):
        self.medical_knowledge_base = MedicalKnowledgeBase()
        self.icd_validator = ICDCodeValidator()
        self.cpt_validator = CPTCodeValidator()

    def compute(self, extracted_data):
        relevance_scores = []

        # Validate medical codes
        if 'icd_codes' in extracted_data:
            icd_relevance = self.validate_icd_codes(extracted_data['icd_codes'])
            relevance_scores.append(icd_relevance)

        if 'cpt_codes' in extracted_data:
            cpt_relevance = self.validate_cpt_codes(extracted_data['cpt_codes'])
            relevance_scores.append(cpt_relevance)

        # Check clinical logic
        clinical_logic_score = self.validate_clinical_logic(extracted_data)
        relevance_scores.append(clinical_logic_score)

        return sum(relevance_scores) / len(relevance_scores)

Log Values Method: Quantitative Accuracy Analysis

The log values approach provided quantitative insights into our model's performance:

Implementation

class LogValuesAnalyzer:
    def __init__(self):
        self.baseline_model = BaselineModel()
        self.production_model = ProductionModel()

    def analyze(self, extracted_data):
        # Calculate log-likelihood improvements
        baseline_likelihood = self.baseline_model.log_likelihood(extracted_data)
        production_likelihood = self.production_model.log_likelihood(extracted_data)

        improvement = production_likelihood - baseline_likelihood

        # Field-level analysis
        field_analysis = {}
        for field, value in extracted_data.items():
            field_analysis[field] = {
                'baseline_ll': self.baseline_model.field_likelihood(field, value),
                'production_ll': self.production_model.field_likelihood(field, value),
                'improvement': improvement,
                'confidence': self.calculate_confidence(improvement)
            }

        return {
            'overall_improvement': improvement,
            'field_analysis': field_analysis,
            'statistical_significance': self.test_significance(improvement)
        }

Key Insights from Log Analysis

The log values method revealed:

Field-specific performance: Some fields (like patient names) had higher accuracy than others (like copay amounts)
Document type variations: Performance varied significantly across document types
Improvement quantification: Measurable improvements over baseline approaches

Production Pipeline Integration

Our evaluation framework integrates seamlessly with our production extraction pipeline:

Real-time Evaluation

class ProductionEvaluationPipeline:
    def __init__(self):
        self.evaluator = HealthcareEvaluationFramework()
        self.metrics_collector = MetricsCollector()
        self.alert_system = AlertSystem()

    async def process_document(self, document):
        # Extract data
        extracted_data = await self.extract_data(document)

        # Real-time evaluation
        evaluation_results = self.evaluator.evaluate_extraction(document, extracted_data)

        # Collect metrics
        self.metrics_collector.record(evaluation_results)

        # Check for alerts
        if evaluation_results['composite_score'] < 0.95:
            await self.alert_system.send_alert(document, evaluation_results)

        # Decide on human review
        if self.needs_human_review(evaluation_results):
            await self.queue_for_human_review(document, extracted_data, evaluation_results)

        return extracted_data, evaluation_results

    def needs_human_review(self, evaluation_results):
        return (
            evaluation_results['composite_score'] < 0.98 or
            evaluation_results['domain_validation']['critical_errors'] > 0 or
            evaluation_results['confidence_interval'][1] - evaluation_results['confidence_interval'][0] > 0.1
        )

Achieving 98% Accuracy: Key Strategies

Several strategies were crucial to achieving our 98% accuracy target:

1. Multi-Stage Validation

Automated evaluation catches obvious errors
Domain-specific validation ensures medical accuracy
Human review handles edge cases and builds training data

2. Continuous Learning

class ContinuousLearningSystem:
    def __init__(self):
        self.training_queue = TrainingQueue()
        self.model_updater = ModelUpdater()

    def learn_from_corrections(self, corrections):
        # Add human corrections to training queue
        for correction in corrections:
            self.training_queue.add(
                document=correction.original_document,
                correct_extraction=correction.corrected_data,
                error_type=correction.error_classification
            )

        # Trigger retraining when queue reaches threshold
        if len(self.training_queue) >= self.retrain_threshold:
            self.trigger_retraining()

    async def trigger_retraining(self):
        training_data = self.training_queue.get_all()
        updated_model = await self.model_updater.retrain(training_data)

        # Validate updated model
        validation_results = await self.validate_model(updated_model)

        if validation_results['accuracy'] > self.current_model_accuracy:
            await self.deploy_updated_model(updated_model)

3. Error Analysis and Prevention

class ErrorAnalysisSystem:
    def __init__(self):
        self.error_classifier = ErrorClassifier()
        self.pattern_detector = PatternDetector()

    def analyze_errors(self, evaluation_results):
        errors = self.extract_errors(evaluation_results)

        # Classify error types
        classified_errors = [
            self.error_classifier.classify(error)
            for error in errors
        ]

        # Detect patterns
        patterns = self.pattern_detector.find_patterns(classified_errors)

        # Generate improvement recommendations
        recommendations = self.generate_recommendations(patterns)

        return {
            'error_breakdown': classified_errors,
            'patterns': patterns,
            'recommendations': recommendations
        }

Results and Impact

Our comprehensive evaluation framework has delivered significant results:

Quantitative Improvements

98% accuracy on critical field extraction
80% reduction in manual verification work
95% confidence intervals within ±2% for most extractions
<100ms average evaluation latency in production

Operational Benefits

Standardized quality metrics across all extraction tasks
Real-time monitoring of model performance
Automated alerting for accuracy degradation
Continuous improvement through systematic error analysis

Business Impact

Reduced operational costs through automation
Improved compliance with healthcare regulations
Faster processing times for critical documents
Higher customer satisfaction due to accuracy

Lessons Learned

Building this system taught us several important lessons:

1. Healthcare Requires Domain-Specific Evaluation

Standard NLP metrics don't capture healthcare-specific requirements. Custom metrics for clinical relevance and regulatory compliance were essential.

2. Human-in-the-Loop is Critical

Even with 98% accuracy, human oversight remains necessary for:

Edge cases and novel document types
Regulatory compliance verification
Continuous improvement through error correction

3. Multi-Modal Evaluation is Powerful

Combining different evaluation approaches (Cove, Gevals, log values) provides comprehensive coverage and catches different types of errors.

4. Real-Time Monitoring Enables Quick Response

Production monitoring allows us to detect and respond to accuracy degradation quickly, maintaining system reliability.

Future Directions

We're continuing to improve our evaluation framework:

Enhanced Automation

Self-improving models that automatically incorporate corrections
Predictive error detection to prevent issues before they occur
Dynamic threshold adjustment based on document complexity

Broader Healthcare Applications

Clinical decision support evaluation frameworks
Drug interaction detection accuracy measurement
Population health analytics validation systems

Conclusion

Building a production-grade LLM evaluation framework for healthcare required combining cutting-edge AI evaluation techniques with deep domain knowledge and rigorous engineering practices. Our 98% accuracy achievement demonstrates that LLMs can meet healthcare's stringent requirements when properly evaluated and monitored.

The key to success was treating evaluation not as an afterthought, but as a core component of our AI system. By investing heavily in comprehensive evaluation infrastructure, we built trust with healthcare providers and enabled safe, effective AI deployment in critical healthcare workflows.

For teams building similar systems, I recommend starting with evaluation framework design before building extraction models. The evaluation system becomes the foundation for everything else: model selection, training data quality, production monitoring, and continuous improvement.

Harshavardhan is a Founding Engineer at Mantys Healthcare AI, where he builds AI systems for healthcare automation. He specializes in LLM evaluation, healthcare AI, and production ML systems. Connect with him on LinkedIn for discussions about healthcare AI and evaluation frameworks.