MCBK UK 2026: Mobilizing Computable Biomedical Knowledge

Notes from MCBK UK 2026, where the throughline across every session was making biomedical knowledge FAIR-T — findable, accessible, interoperable, reproducible, and trusted — through a coordinated ecosystem rather than fragmented, duplicated effort.

Key Themes

Knowledge Architecture: Jeremy Wyatt opened by distinguishing human-readable knowledge from computer-executable knowledge, framing knowledge as information used to support clinical decisions across multiple patients — not a one-off artifact.

Technical Implementation: Workflow-aware guideline representation using BPMN-style structures dramatically reduces false-positive drug interaction alerts by contextualizing recommendations within the patient’s actual care pathway, rather than firing rules in isolation.

Real-World Adoption Barriers: NHS Medway’s research identified ten recurring adoption themes. EPR integration, trust, and peer endorsement mattered more to uptake than raw tool features.

Safety and Oversight: Doju Cheriachan and Sharifah Omar both stressed that guideline compliance alone doesn’t ensure safety — human-AI interaction needs ongoing monitoring as a patient safety signal in its own right.

Systemic Integration: Charlie McCay’s point landed hardest: knowledge, records, and care management need to align before reaching the patient, rather than leaving practitioners to reconcile them under time pressure.

Policy and Infrastructure: Felix Greaves outlined NHS England’s shift toward digital-first, locally-delivered care, underpinned by federated data platforms and AI governance frameworks.

Closing Insight

Knowledge only generates value when it’s integrated into usable, trusted workflows. That’s a socio-technical challenge, not merely a technical one.

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