How Augmented Medicines Intelligence Is Shaping Clinical Decision Support in Ambient Voice Technology

From Documentation to Decision Support: How Augmented Medicines Intelligence is Shaping the Future of Ambient Voice
We talk to Dr Simon Hendricks, FDB’s Principal AI Strategist, about all things clinical decision support, the evolution of Ambient Voice Technology (AVT) and how FDB’s Augmented Medicines Intelligence (AMI) is helping to shape the next generation of ambient voice solutions by bringing trusted medicines intelligence into the conversation.

How Can Ambient Voice Technology Improve Medication Safety and Clinical Decision-Making?
Traditional prescribing decision support is often delivered at a defined point in the prescribing workflow, sometimes after a clinician has already begun to form a view about the most appropriate treatment.

The rise of AVT creates an opportunity to make relevant medicines intelligence and decision support available earlier, while the consultation and clinical reasoning are still developing.

The aim is not to replace clinical judgement. Rather, it is to give clinicians timely, relevant information that can help to inform their decisions as they are being made.

How Does Augmented Medicines Intelligence Extend Clinical Decision Support?
FDB’s AMI combines relevant information captured from the consultation with the patient’s structured record, enabling more contextual medicines decision support as clinical reasoning develops.

It also brings together medicines intelligence that has traditionally been delivered through separate modules, such as drug-drug interaction, drug allergy and medicine-condition checks. Rather than presenting these outputs in isolation, AMI can distill the key considerations and recommendations relevant to the patient and consultation.

For example, during a consultation for a chest infection, a clinician may discuss prescribing clarithromycin. The consultation transcript captures the medicine being considered, while the patient’s structured record shows that they are already taking simvastatin. AMI can bring these two pieces of information together and apply FDB’s established medicines intelligence, highlighting the potential interaction while the treatment decision is still being considered. The clinician can then review the information and decide whether an alternative treatment or other action is appropriate.

The great thing about this enhancement is that existing FDB users and customers will continue to benefit from trusted medicines knowledge and established clinical decision support capabilities, delivered through a more integrated workflow. The difference is that this trusted support can be delivered earlier in the prescribing journey, in a more tailored way.

Can Context-Aware Clinical Decision Support Help Reduce Alert Fatigue?
Clinical decision support is most useful when it reaches clinicians at the point when they are considering their options within a consultation. If it appears later, or without the full context of the consultation, it may be less relevant to the decision being made and add to the volume of alerts clinicians need to process.

AMI can use relevant information captured during the consultation with the patient, combine it with the information that is known about the patient already from the structured record and then provide decision support. This is all done in the background without impinging on the consultation.

By doing so, the intention is to reduce the noise and increase the precision of the decision support by taking into account more of that context from the consultation conversation and which may not exist in the structured record.

How Is Ambient Voice Technology Changing the Clinical Consultation?
AVT is already helping clinicians reduce the time they spend documenting consultations. That is valuable because it can give clinicians more time to listen and engage with their patients.

However, AVT isn't really helping me yet, as a clinician, to use the information that has been distilled from a consultation in other ways. That's the next opportunity, and it’s what FDB is enabling: using this foundation and combining it with other sources of information to support prescribing decisions.

What Is the Future of Clinical Decision Support With Ambient Voice Technology?
The potential of this technology is significant, particularly in how it could support the delivery of prescribing decision support. The more context we have, the better we can be at targeting that support.

For me, the opportunity is to make clinical decision support more timely and more closely connected to the consultation, while continuing to build on the trusted medicines knowledge and established safeguards that clinicians already rely on.

For clinicians, this means being able to identify potential safety signals earlier and surface patient-specific medicines considerations and relevant, actionable information for clinician review while decisions are still being made. This could reduce cognitive load, help address downstream alert fatigue and create more opportunities for preventative care.

For patients, this means greater confidence that relevant medicines-related risks can be considered as part of the consultation and prescribing workflow, helping to support safer care and reduce the risk of avoidable harm.

Ultimately, AMI is extending the value of trusted clinical decision support into a new part of the consultation, supporting clinicians with relevant medicines intelligence while keeping their judgement at the centre of care.

About Dr. Simon Hendricks
Dr. Simon Hendricks has been with FDB for more than 22 years. He is Principal AI Strategist at FDB, focusing on the application of artificial intelligence, medicines intelligence and clinical decision support within healthcare workflows. Prior roles at the organisation have included the original design and on going maintenance of disease-centric SNOMED CT based Clinical Decision Support. He has also authored machine readable medical protocols and clinical content. Additionally he is a member of the risk assessment team responsible for identifying and minimising clinical risks associated with all new product development. Dr. Hendricks holds a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB), Medicine from The University of Manchester as well as a Master of Science (M.Sc.), Health Information Sciences from the University of Warwick where he graduated with distinction.