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ClinicalKey AIby Elsevier

Contact Information

ckai-support@elsevier.com

Release Stage

General Availability

Release Date

2026-03-01

Version

n/a

Regulatory Approval

N/A

Global Availability

Available globally

Summary

A concise overview of what this solution does and why it exists.

About

ClinicalKey AI is a conversational clinical decision support tool built on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology. The system is designed to help physicians at the point of care quickly obtain reliable, evidence-based answers to clinical questions. ClinicalKey AI uses Elsevier's trusted clinical content corpus — including Clinical Overviews, Drug Monographs, and peer-reviewed journal content — as its grounding knowledge base. It employs a LangGraph-based orchestration framework with pluggable RAG components, citation validation, query interpretation, multi-language support, and guardrails for out-of-scope or toxic queries. The system is intended to assist clinical decision-making, not replace it; all responses include citations, and clinicians are expected to apply professional judgment.

Uses and Directions

Who it’s for, how it’s used, and where it applies in care.

Intended Use

ClinicalKey AI is a conversational clinical reference tool intended to support physicians at the point of care in answering clinical questions. The intended workflow is: (1) a clinician submits a natural-language clinical query; (2) ClinicalKey AI interprets and expands the query, retrieves relevant passages from Elsevier's clinical content corpus via search, validates citations, and generates a structured, cited response; (3) the clinician reviews the response alongside citations and applies professional judgment. The system supports follow-up questions and non-English language queries (with transparent pre/post translation).

Primary Users

Physicians and other licensed clinicians (including specialists, residents, and advanced practice providers) seeking point-of-care clinical reference information. The system is intended for use by appropriately trained healthcare professionals who are capable of critically evaluating AI-generated clinical content.

How to Use

Users interact with ClinicalKey AI through a conversational web interface. To use the system: (1) enter a clinical question in natural language (English or supported non-English language); (2) review the AI-generated response, which includes inline citations linking to source content; (3) optionally expand citations to view the specific passage used; (4) ask follow-up questions as needed; (5) provide feedback via thumbs-up/down to help improve the system. Users should not rely solely on AI-generated responses for clinical decision-making. All responses should be verified against primary sources and clinical judgment.

Target Population

Patients across a broad range of clinical settings and specialties. The system is designed to answer general clinical questions and is not restricted to a specific patient population, age group, or condition. Queries relating to pediatric, geriatric, or other special populations are supported within the scope of available Elsevier content.

Cautioned Out-of-Scope Settings

Out of scope

The system is not intended for: (1) use as a standalone diagnostic or treatment decision tool without clinician oversight; (2) emergency triage or time-critical clinical decisions where latency is unacceptable; (3) queries requiring access to patient-specific EHR data (the system has no access to patient records); (4) non-clinical or administrative use cases; (5) use by non-clinicians for self-diagnosis or self-treatment. Responses are grounded in Elsevier content and may not reflect the most recent literature if that literature is not yet indexed in the content corpus.

EHR Compatibility

Compatible EHRs

  • Epic
  • Cerner / Oracle Health