Singapore, 18 September 2024 – All healthcare professionals across SingHealth institutions will progressively have access to Note Buddy, an innovative Generative AI-powered documentation system, to assist them in clinical documentation during consultations. Note Buddy’s key feature is its ability to automatically transcribe and summarise conversations in four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) simultaneously between the clinician and patient during clinic consultations into accurate clinical notes using customised prompts that guide the way the clinical note is summarised. This allows clinicians to dedicate the time during each consultation to interacting with patients and their caregivers to better understand and address their health concerns and questions.

Developed by SingHealth’s Division of Digital Strategy, Note Buddy is launched on the Synapxe Tandem a Secure Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) platform developed by Synapxe, Singapore’s HealthTech agency. Synapxe Tandem is a secure custom-built platform that integrates Microsoft’s Azure Open AI Service, which enables healthcare professionals to access advanced technology in a safe and efficient manner.

Currently, healthcare professionals have to document clinical notes during consultations with patients. Note Buddy heralds a paradigm shift in the way clinical documentation is done. Before the consultation, clinicians can customise the Note Buddy system prompts to specifically format the notes required for their specialty. For instance, an endocrinologist can use Note Buddy to document patient-reported insights, diabetes and thyroid assessments, as well as cardiometabolic management plans, ensuring that this key information is captured. During the consultation, Note Buddy can extract and summarise the relevant information shared during the doctor-patient conversation into clinical notes in real time. Clinicians can review the notes immediately after each consultation to ensure that the necessary information has been accurately documented. This process enhances the timeliness, completeness and accuracy of each clinical documentation.

Associate Professor Goh Su-Yen, Senior Consultant, Department of Endocrinology, Singapore General Hospital (SGH), shared: "Using Note Buddy has allowed me to engage more meaningfully with my patients and reduce the cognitive burden of manually typing out what was discussed. I have found the notes captured by Note Buddy to be accurate. The system can even selectively prioritise and capture the relevant and pertinent pieces of the patient’s medical history. I can now give my patients my full attention during our consultation sessions.”

Mr Toh Tiam Huat shared his experience as a patient at the Department of Endocrinology, SGH, “As someone managing diabetes, I need to monitor and report many aspects of my physical health. When I experience any new symptoms, my doctor and I will discuss in detail what the causes may be and ways I can better manage my condition. My doctor sees many patients every day. I’m glad that this new system will be able to help my doctor organise the information we discuss, so that at my next visit, I can be confident she has all the information we need to assess if we need to adjust my treatment plan with the detailed notes that have been taken.”

One of SingHealth’s top priorities in implementing Note Buddy is to ensure that patient information and data is secure. The team worked closely with Synapxe to enable Note Buddy to be securely deployed within the healthcare IT setting.

Andy Ta, Director of Data aNalytics and AI, and Chief Data Officer at Synapxe, said: “Synapxe plays a pivotal role in tech-enabling the vision of a healthier Singapore alongside our public healthcare institutions through technology. I am excited about the benefits that our collaboration will bring to our healthcare professionals. By leveraging Synapxe Tandem’s Secure GPT platform, Generative AI innovations such as Note Buddy can be deployed across other institutions within the public healthcare family. Healthcare professionals can also use Synapxe Tandem to experiment with Generative AI use cases, and securely test-drive and accelerate adoption through quick prototyping. I look forward to seeing the development of more health tech innovations launched on Synapxe Tandem.”

Benedict Tan, Group Chief Digital Strategy Officer, SingHealth, added, “Embracing digital health is about empowering our patients, population and staff to leverage technologies to fundamentally transform healthcare practices and processes, with the quadruple goals of enhancing patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, and increasing staff fulfilment at work. Generative AI presents a huge technological opportunity when deployed as a standalone solution, but when integrated with other digital technologies, it creates even more potential for transformations that can positively impact patients’ lives”.

SingHealth aims to roll out Note Buddy to all clinicians in all institutions in the cluster by the end of 2024.