Your practice has invested in digital tools to reduce pressure on staff and improve patient access. But when a partner asks what that investment has delivered, how easily can you answer?
Usage reports can show that patients are engaging with a digital assistant or clinicians are using an AI scribe. They tell you less about whether those tools are reducing work, releasing capacity or helping patients get the support they need.
Return on investment (ROI) connects the cost of a tool with the value it delivers. Understanding the ROI of technology in general practice means looking at what has changed for patients and staff, alongside any financial benefits. Data dashboards like Surgery Insights help teams build that picture by bringing together data on patient access, digital adoption and workforce capacity.
GP Pathfinder Clinics (GPC) has begun using this evidence to assess its technology investment, inform budgets and show staff where tools support their work. Its experience shows why measuring activity alone isn’t enough to understand the return.
Start with the problem you want to solve
To measure the ROI of technology in general practice, first be clear about what you want a tool to improve. Are reception staff answering the same routine questions? Are patients calling to chase requests? Is consultation admin extending clinicians’ working days?
Each problem needs a relevant measure. A digital assistant might help reduce routine telephone enquiries. An AI scribe might reduce documentation time. Higher usage can be encouraging, but the benefit depends on what happens to the work.
Record a starting point and compare similar periods, taking changes in staffing, patient demand and seasonal pressures into account. This gives you a more reliable basis for assessing the ROI of technology in general practice and deciding where further changes are needed.
At GPC, reception teams were handling a high volume of queries about admin, test results and referrals. Before the changes, the practice received more than 20,000 inbound calls a month, with an average wait of 5 minutes 29 seconds.
The practice introduced Surgery Assist, a 24/7 digital assistant, to help patients get answers to routine questions and free staff to focus on requests needing their support. GPC and X-on Health set targets for shorter peak waits, fewer missed calls and greater digital self-service, giving them clear measures for reviewing the impact.
Use a centralised dashboard to see the wider picture
A report from one tool can only show part of the patient journey. A patient might use an online service and then telephone because the next step is unclear. Counting the digital interaction alone would miss that extra work and give an incomplete picture of the ROI of technology in general practice.
Surgery Insights brings together GP practice data including telephony, Surgery Assist, online consultation and NHS data. Practices can review digital uptake alongside call volumes, waiting times and missed calls to understand how access is changing across different routes.
For example, reviewing common Surgery Assist queries alongside call patterns can help teams identify where patients need clearer information. Appointment and NHS App data can add context around attendance and self-service. Staff feedback can then help explain patterns that the dashboard alone cannot resolve.
After introducing Surgery Assist, GPC could see through Surgery Insights that 58% of callers sent an SMS link to digital support resolved their query digitally. This accounted for 2,910 calls that did not need to continue through the telephone queue.
Telephone access also improved: average waiting time fell by 54.2%, from 5 minutes 29 seconds to 2 minutes 31 seconds, while monthly missed calls fell from 3,862 to 2,092. Viewing these results together helped GPC assess the ROI of technology in general practice beyond chatbot usage alone.
The dashboard also helped GPC identify where patients needed support. Visibility of NHS App uptake prompted the practice to appoint two NHS App ambassadors to help patients use digital services. NHS App adoption rose from 60% to 89%, while the share of repeat prescriptions requested online increased from 7.4% to 22.1%.
Higher digital adoption does not necessarily mean better access for every patient. Some need help using online services, while others continue to rely on the telephone. GPC’s use of NHS App ambassadors shows why practices need to consider who is benefiting from digital access, not just how many people are using it.
Show what the time released makes possible
The Government’s Digital and Data Benefits Framework identifies time released for other work, better user experience and fewer follow-up contacts as benefits of digital investment.
Time saved becomes more meaningful when you can explain how the practice uses it.
For GPC, Surgery Assist’s estimated administrative time saving was 42,021 minutes, around 700 hours. The practice reported a 45% increase in overall demand while reception workload remained stable.
GPC was managing greater demand without a corresponding increase in reception workload. For practices facing growing demand and limited capacity, absorbing additional work can represent a valuable return, even without a direct financial saving.
As part of its wider workforce redesign, GPC moved staff from telephone duties into back-office administration and care navigation, matching telephone staffing to demand throughout the day.
The practical question is what that capacity allows your team to do. Can staff complete work that previously built up? Spend more time helping patients with complex needs? Manage increased demand within existing capacity?
Keep the distinction between capacity and cash clear. Releasing staff time does not automatically reduce the wage bill. It may instead help the practice absorb demand, improve support or reduce pressure on the team.
A financial calculation of the ROI of technology in general practice also needs the full cost of the tools. These include subscriptions, setup, training and ongoing staff input. Any estimated value assigned to released time should be explained separately from a reduction in actual spending, such as lower overtime costs.
Reporting financial returns and operational benefits separately helps practices demonstrate value without treating every hour saved as money saved.
Make the evidence useful to staff and leaders
Reporting on the ROI of technology in general practice should help people make decisions. A short, regular review can show what the practice wanted to improve, what changed, what it cost and what needs attention next.
GPC used Surgery Insights dashboards and monthly exports for board reports, showing time and cost benefits alongside changes in access and demand. It also included software capacity within team budgets, recognising the work technology supported.
This is another part of the value: understanding performance should not create a large reporting burden of its own. For partners and senior leaders, these findings can inform renewal and budget discussions. For staff, they create an opportunity to check whether reported benefits match everyday experience and identify where workflows need adjusting.
Keep reviewing the ROI of technology in general practice
The return from technology can change as patient needs, staffing and ways of working develop. Reviewing and improving workflows beyond go-live helps practices spot low uptake, repeat contact or tasks that still need too much manual input
This matters for AI tools too. A high number of outputs is useful context, but practices also need to understand the review work involved and whether the tool helps staff complete tasks more easily.
At GPC, regular reviews with X-on Health combined Surgery Insights data with staff feedback to refine patient pathways. These reviews also informed service provision. Surgery Assist questions and Surgery Insights data highlighted demand for dermatology, leading GPC to bring in a dermatologist for four hours each week. Reporting became part of improving how the tools were used, as well as assessing their value.
This shows how measuring return can inform decisions beyond the technology itself. GPC used the evidence to identify a service need and adjust provision, rather than simply report digital activity.
For your practice, the question isn’t just whether technology is saving time. It’s whether that time is being released in practice, where the capacity is going and whether patients and staff are seeing the benefit.
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