Focusing on patient interaction: Revolutionising clinical documentation with note buddy

SingHealth's AI-powered Note Buddy transforms clinical documentation by capturing doctor-patient conversations in real time, allowing healthcare professionals to focus entirely on patient care whilst automatically generating accurate medical notes in multiple languages.
 

For clinicians, each patient encounter is an intricate choreography of care. They must simultaneously manage several critical responsibilities: build rapport with patients while carefully listening to their concerns, formulate the right diagnostic questions, and accurately document all essential information for treatment and future reference.

A multidisciplinary team comprising clinicians, data analysts, and administrators from SingHealth recognised that reducing the documentation burden on clinicians could significantly improve patient care quality and physician satisfaction. They were led by project lead Ajeet Kumar, Senior Assistant Director, SingHealth Office of Insights & Analytics; and Clinical Lead Associate Professor Goh Su-Yen, Group Director, Innovation & Transformation, SingHealth, and Senior Consultant, Endocrinology, SGH.

Note Buddy won Best Team Award (Clinical Practice Improvement) at the 2026 Singapore Health Quality Service Awards

To realise this objective, a healthcare artificial intelligence tool, Note Buddy, was created.

Using ambient scribe technology, Note Buddy captures doctor-patient conversations in real time and converts them into clinical notes in a secure and accessible online space. Developed by SingHealth’s Division of Digital Strategy for the local healthcare system, Note Buddy recognises five languages: English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, as well as Cantonese.

Says A/Prof Su-Yen, “With Note Buddy, clinicians can now focus on the patient and connect better with them. The cognitive burden of remembering and synthesising information during consults has been reduced. As a result, our quality of patient interaction and experience has greatly improved.”

“Clinicians can now fully focus on the patient and be assured that important data points are being captured as Note Buddy runs in the background. Once the consultation ends, the clinical notes are automatically generated in their preferred format using customised prompts,” explains Michelle Loke, Senior Principal Analyst, Machine Learning, SingHealth. “Productivity is enhanced and time saved in generating documentation can be invested back into patient care.”

While originally conceived as a voice-to-text tool, Note Buddy’s capabilities have expanded to include additional features such as text-to-text summarisation. Healthcare staff can use Note Buddy to convert existing clinical documentation into structured formats such as medical reports, referral letters, or discharge summaries in seconds.

Note Buddy has been widely used since its launch in August 2024, starting with SingHealth staff and progressively expanded to other public healthcare institutions across Singapore. As of December 2025, the tool has supported over 5,000 healthcare staff, generating more than 67,000 medical and administrative notes, and freeing up valuable time for patient care and other important support functions. It has been a reliable assistant beyond doctors’ offices, with allied health professionals, nurses, and administrative personnel benefiting from the time savings it brings.

Enhancements to Note Buddy are ongoing to bring even more benefits to users. There are plans to incorporate a real-time translator, which will include foreign languages such as Tagalog and Burmese, supporting communication between healthcare staff and caregivers. “Note Buddy is always a work in progress as we continue to find new ways to support healthcare professionals. By building our solutions internally, we can accelerate the development and testing process, respond quickly to user feedback, and customise our products to Singapore’s healthcare needs,” says Ajeet.

The team has just released a mobile version of Note Buddy for on-the-go use. This enables seamless documentation support during ward rounds and in community care settings. “Seeing how Note Buddy is making a widespread impact across the healthcare spectrum makes this project both exciting and meaningful to us,” says Michelle.

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