Module
Answers with a source, a version and a date — or no answer at all
Medical knowledge changes, sources conflict, textbooks go out of date and local protocols differ from national guidance. A system that blends all of that into one confident paragraph is worse than no system. This module stores versioned claims with provenance and returns citations at the level of the claim.
The failure mode is a fluent, uncited, slightly stale answer
A language model asked a clinical question will produce a plausible answer whether or not it has grounds for one. In a radiation-oncology department the same question has different correct answers depending on the disease site, stage, intent, technique, jurisdiction and which revision of the local protocol was adopted. The useful system is the one that can say which source it is relying on, when that source was last reviewed, whether the clinic has adopted it, and which other source disagrees.
What the module does
- Stores claims, not documents
- Each claim carries its source title, edition, section, publisher, publication and review dates, disease site, stage, intent, modality, technique, jurisdiction, evidence type and strength, applicability and exclusions, local adoption status, clinical owner and expiry date.
- Ranks sources
- Signed institutional policies and commissioned data govern local practice. Regulatory requirements, professional guidelines and standards set the baseline. Systematic reviews and trials support. Textbooks explain. Unverified web content and uncited model output are never a clinical authority.
- Shows conflicts
- Where two sources disagree, both are shown with their versions and dates. The platform does not silently pick one, and it does not average them.
- Enforces freshness
- A source past its review date produces a block rather than an answer. Staleness is treated as a stop condition.
- Abstains
- Where no approved source supports the claim, or where a required input such as treated laterality is disputed, the agent says it cannot answer and stops.
- Respects licensing
- Sources are registered with their licence and permitted use. Content without rights for enterprise search, retrieval or model use is represented by bibliographic metadata and clinician-authored summaries only.
What it does not do
Boundaries of this module
- Promote a retrieved abstract into a protocol.
- Answer a question whose required clinical input is missing or disputed.
- Treat a university affiliation or a familiar source name as a substitute for appraisal.
- Use scraped or unlicensed copyrighted text.
See it working
The synthetic thorax case surfaces two revisions of the same local protocol that disagree about whether a contour review can be waived. Both are shown. The adopted revision governs, and the conflict is recorded rather than hidden. On the blocked case, the same agent abstains entirely.
Status