oe-extension

oe-extension is a Chrome browser extension aimed at clinicians, medical students, and anyone reading evidence-based medicine resources. The core idea is simple: highlight a passage of text on a medical website, click a button in the small toolbar that appears above the selection, and the extension opens OpenEvidence with that text as a search query in a new tab beside the current one. OpenEvidence is an AI-powered medical reference tool.

Beyond the basic search, the extension also adds buttons to search the selected text in UpToDate and Google. If you provide a Groq API key (a free or paid account with an AI provider), the extension gains the ability to rewrite selected text before sending it. The main rewrite mode is called PICO, a structured format used in evidence-based medicine for framing clinical questions around Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome. You can also define your own custom prompt buttons with names like Dx or Summarize, each with instructions for how to transform the selection. The transformed result appears in an editable panel so you can review and adjust it before searching.

The extension works on a whitelist of domains. By default it activates on OpenEvidence, UpToDate, the NEJM website, Anki study pages, and local files opened in the browser. You can add your own sites to the list. A query history tab records everything sent to OpenEvidence, including the original selection and any rewritten version.

Installation is done by downloading a zip file from the GitHub releases page, unzipping it, and loading it through Chrome's developer extensions page. There is no Chrome Web Store listing. The Groq API key is stored locally in your browser and is never bundled with the extension or sent anywhere except to Groq when you use the rewrite features. The extension uses no external frameworks and is plain JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. It is MIT licensed.