Start date: July 2025  |  Expected completion date: Spring 2026  |  Contact: Gary Raine
 

What do we want to know?

The growing administrative burden on staff in primary care settings affects clinical capacity, staff well-being, and job satisfaction. This can compromise patient care and increase costs for the NHS. Artificial intelligence (AI) is believed to have the potential to help reduce this administrative burden. We want to find out if there is evidence that AI tools might help reduce administrative load and make primary care more efficient. 

Who wants to know?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in England commissioned this systematic evidence map. Work is being carried out by the London-York PRP Evidence Review Facility, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The findings may be of interest to national and local policymakers and commissioners, clinicians, researchers, patients and the public.

What are the research questions?

We will map available evidence on the use of AI tools in primary care administration or back-office tasks. Our specific focus is on AI tools which help reduce the administrative burden and improve efficiency in primary care.

How will we answer these questions?

We will systematically search for empirical studies that evaluate the use of AI tools for administrative tasks in primary care from 2010 onwards. We will produce a summary of available evidence. We will also create an interactive map of the evidence using EPPI Visualiser. We will code studies by useful characteristics such as study design; country of origin; primary care setting; name of model or AI evaluated; task performed and stage of development.