The GP Recruitment and Retention in the Limestone Coast Division General Practice study, published last year in the Australian Journal of Rural Health, shows that the concepts of branding, advertising and customer relationships can be applied effectively to attract GPs to rural areas.
UniSA's Marketing Program Director and study leader Dr Elizabeth Hemphill said the exciting part of the study is that the concepts of commercial marketing can be transferred to help alleviate a pressing social issue.
"We found that in the next 10 years, fewer than 40 per cent of rural GPs surveyed intended to remain in the region they were in," she said.
"Most international GPs only stay in rural areas for around two years and a lot of the GP workforce is increasingly mobile.
"By using marketing concepts, the practice could view GPs as `customers' and other practices as `healthy competition' in what is a competitive market for GPs, and could begin to `target' their customers effectively.
"Customer satisfaction is a key premise of marketing and we found that, by looking at the GP as a customer, the practice could evaluate their `product' in line with GP perceptions and expectations."
The study also recommended that rural practices consider "branding" to better attract and retain GPs.
Dr Hemphill said more research is underway to determine what critical factors persuade practitioners to choose one practice over another.
"We already know from other researchers that there are three main factors which come into play when GPs make decisions about employment - opportunities for professional development, opportunities for their spouse and community support," Dr Hemphill said.
"We're looking a little deeper into these factors to gain insight into the choices of practitioners - the critical factors that determine what GPs really do value and the trade-offs they are willing to make to choose or stay in rural areas."
Dr Hemphill said the issues of recruitment naturally reached into human resource management, which is why she has teamed up with fellow UniSA Research Professor in Human Resource Management, Professor Carol Kulik for the next stage of the project.
"This takes the transfer of business concepts to another level again. Prof Kulik's interest is in employment advertising and how HR advertising strategies can be applied to what are currently very simple classified advertisements for GPs.
"We'd love to see employment advertisements in which a branded practice can communicate more about what they have to offer the GP, in the way that other businesses and agencies do to attract the right employee," Dr Hemphill said.
"There's so much potential, it's really exciting and this is only the beginning."
Once the second round of research has been completed in March, Dr Hemphill and her colleagues will be looking for medical practices interested in applying some of the concepts.
