  Large AI models, or foundation models, are models recently emerging with
massive scales both parameter-wise and data-wise, the magnitudes of which can
reach beyond billions. Once pretrained, large AI models demonstrate impressive
performance in various downstream tasks. A prime example is ChatGPT, whose
capability has compelled people's imagination about the far-reaching influence
that large AI models can have and their potential to transform different
domains of our lives. In health informatics, the advent of large AI models has
brought new paradigms for the design of methodologies. The scale of multi-modal
data in the biomedical and health domain has been ever-expanding especially
since the community embraced the era of deep learning, which provides the
ground to develop, validate, and advance large AI models for breakthroughs in
health-related areas. This article presents a comprehensive review of large AI
models, from background to their applications. We identify seven key sectors in
which large AI models are applicable and might have substantial influence,
including 1) bioinformatics; 2) medical diagnosis; 3) medical imaging; 4)
medical informatics; 5) medical education; 6) public health; and 7) medical
robotics. We examine their challenges, followed by a critical discussion about
potential future directions and pitfalls of large AI models in transforming the
field of health informatics.
