Deep Dive: A Look at Google’s NotebookLM

The AI Clinic: Deep Dive #1 | Subscribe

TL;DR: With AI tools flooding the market, the challenge is turning them into meaningful, practical solutions rather than flashy novelties. Google's NotebookLM, despite Google’s mixed AI track record, shows promise by transforming personal data into a powerful, interactive knowledge base. In healthcare, NotebookLM could streamline tasks for administrators and clinicians alike—from simplifying compliance and onboarding to helping medical professionals quickly access relevant research. I’ve personally used it to tackle the 1,000+ page CMS CY 2025 PFS Proposed Rule, turning an overwhelming document into manageable insights tailored to my focus on Advanced Primary Care proposals. Feel free to use my Notebook for yourself here. Google account required.

The Need for AI Deep Dives

Anyone who has used AI tools recently knows how powerful they can be. Whether you're summarizing documents, conducting research, or simply brainstorming, the breadth of AI tools available to help with these tasks has been astonishing.

Yet, the most important aspect of these tools is finding ways to move beyond novelty—AI shouldn't just be a party trick or a flashy demo. The true promise of AI innovations is their potential to transform our day-to-day tasks and, by extension, to make our work richer and more meaningful. This is especially relevant in healthcare, where time is at a premium and we're burdened under more immense regulatory pressure.

In that spirit, I'll be devoting part of the time of this newsletter to exploring the tools that are available on the market, their promise, potential uses, and sharing what I find.

Google’s AI Ventures: A Mixed Record

Google’s journey into AI has been a mixed bag so far. While their Gemini chatbot is seen as a significant player, it's notably behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT in utilization, and their initial forays into AI have had some notable missteps, there is one project that has been quietly garnering significant attention: NotebookLM.

While Google's broader AI tools haven’t taken the world by storm, NotebookLM stands out for its practicality and intuitive design. Initially aimed at helping users manage complex information more easily, it offers a surprising feature that sets it apart from other AI-powered tools: its focus on organizing and interacting with your data in a meaningful, highly personalized way.

What is NotebookLM?

NotebookLM (formerly known as Project Tailwind) is a unique AI tool developed by Google with a primary focus on helping users turn their notes, documents, and personal data into an accessible, searchable knowledge base. It’s more than just a note-taking app—it’s intended to be a smart assistant that learns from your documents and helps you interact with your data more effectively. See a video demonstration here.

At its core, NotebookLM allows users to upload content (such as notes, research papers, or training materials), then leverages Google’s AI to summarize, organize, and create cross-references within that material.

The key selling point is that it can answer questions directly referencing your documents. Unlike chatbots that rely solely on vast but generic datasets, NotebookLM works with your data, making it a more personalized tool for users with niche knowledge areas. It’s essentially an AI-powered personal research assistant.

Use Cases for NotebookLM in Healthcare

Given the complexity and data-heavy nature of healthcare, NotebookLM could be transformative across several roles. From administrators to clinicians, the healthcare setting offers many applications for this type of tool.

For Administrators:

Administrative tasks in healthcare are often burdened by paperwork, compliance guidelines, and staff training materials. NotebookLM could serve as a dynamic knowledge base, simplifying tasks like building onboarding programs and creating training materials for new employees.

Imagine having a repository where all staff protocols, policy changes, and compliance resources are housed, and administrators can build reference materials for staff by clicking one button and receive an instant, accurate response based on the facility’s own guidelines.

Compliance, in particular, is an area ripe for AI-powered assistance. The ever-changing landscape of healthcare regulations means administrators need fast and easy access to up-to-date rules. NotebookLM could centralize all regulatory guidelines, allowing quick cross-referencing of compliance materials when questions arise.

For Clinicians:

Clinicians, on the other hand, may find even more direct uses for NotebookLM. One of the main challenges faced by doctors and medical trainees is the sheer volume of clinical data they must process. With AI’s ability to summarize and cross-reference specific studies, a trainee could upload a series of journal articles focused on a particular condition and then quickly retrieve the key findings when preparing for a patient consult or discussion.

For practicing clinicians, NotebookLM could serve as a living, searchable database of medical journals and research that is tailored to their own specific interests. For example, a cardiologist who regularly follows the latest advances in heart disease treatment could maintain a NotebookLM project dedicated to that specialty. When faced with a complex case, they could search within their uploaded data for relevant case studies, drug trials, or the latest treatment protocols, ensuring they are working with the most current and relevant information.

Using NotebookLM to Tackle the CMS CY 2025 PFS Proposed Rule

For myself, I created a Notebook dedicated to the CMS CY 2025 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Proposed Rule, which outlines changes to payment policies CMS is considering for next year. With over 1,000 pages of dense regulatory text, this document is almost impossible to skim through effectively—especially if you’re looking for specific details.

So, instead of manually combing through the document, I’ve been using NotebookLM to easily summarize the key sections that matter most to me. In particular, I’m focused on CMS’s proposed Advanced Primary Care initiatives, and NotebookLM helps me focus in on those specific areas, extracting the relevant insights without getting buried in the document.

By uploading the entire rule into NotebookLM, I can quickly search for the topics I’m interested in and generate summaries or cross-reference related sections. What once felt like an overwhelming document has now become much more manageable, and this allows me to stay on top of key regulatory shifts without getting bogged down in the details.

Feel free to use my Notebook for yourself here. Google account required.

That’s all for now. We’ll talk again Friday for a summary of the week’s healthcare AI news.

-Patrick