Navigating GP care in a digital age

Do GPs see their practice as a brand?
 
Kate Toon, an award-winning business mentor, digital marketing coach, speaker, podcaster, and author, believes it’s about time they should.
 
She spoke at the recent RACGP Practice Owners Conference in Sydney, where hundreds of delegates attended an engaging panel discussion exploring the challenges that come with running a practice.
 
While clinical work, admin and day-to-day operations are no doubt a key focus for general practices, Ms Toon urged the audience to also consider their public profile.
 
Today’s patients are digital consumers – searching for health content online, using AI to gather information, absorbing messages from social media and looking up doctors online when they hear about local experiences.
 
‘Many of us are terrified of saying anything online in case the pitchforks are brought out, crowds rally and we are taken down,’ said Ms Toon, who’s spent years helping businesses tackle challenges, big and small.
 
‘It can be a very scary time to put ourselves out there, but I think, as many of you know, if you’re growing a practice, social media, video content, reels, YouTube are essential to build your brand.
 
‘You might not think of it, but every single one of you in this room is a brand. Because what is the first thing I do when I hear from my friend that they’ve had a great doctor or been to a great practice? I Google it.
 
‘I want to see everything about you. I want to know your values, your personality, your brand environment, what you stand for, and what you stand against.’
 
It can come down to ‘the ease of making an appointment, the ease of using the practice website, the ease of understanding which GP is best for me’, said Ms Toon.
 
‘You would have to admit that maybe most of your websites don’t do that,’ she said.
 
‘We now have ChatGPT, where people are saying “which is the best GP for me for this particular thing in this area”, and you’re not showing up.
 
‘That’s not manipulating and marketing, that’s simply having the right information out there. It’s not lying and persuading people to buy things they shouldn’t be buying. It’s information.’
 
It was a view that sparked interest on the panel and among the crowd, with fellow panellist, Northern NSW GP Dr David Glendinning agreeing this is an area GPs can explore a little more.
 
‘I like what you’re saying Kate. It is about branding, and in medical school you don’t get taught how to promote your brand as a doctor,’ he said.
 
Dr Glendinning expressed some frustration – albeit in good humour – that he couldn’t advertise his own practice in the same way the Federal Government is able to promote urgent care clinics, nor do GPs have the same marketing muscle that large-chain chemists are able to flex when promoting healthcare, services and advice.
 
Speaking of Ms Toon’s suggestion, he said practices could ‘try and lean in a bit more’ in areas likes social media.
 
Concluding her session, Ms Toon also spoke of the role of GPs as leaders within the community.
 
‘GPs especially have an elevated position in social culture where people look up to you. They are looking for you to be a leader, not just within your team and the practice, but in the wider community,’ she said.
 
In a separate session, the role of social and digital media was also explored by keynote speaker Hannah Ferguson, CEO of Cheek Media – an independent news commentary platform which reaches more than two million Australians every month on Instagram alone.
 
Ms Ferguson spoke of the way younger Australians are engaging with their health, in a world full of influencers – often associated with ‘mis- and disinformation’ – as well as AI products to self-diagnose or source information.
 
‘I know many of you are probably facing questions in practice every single day about peptides, about Ozempic, about biohacking, about looksmaxxing – it’s terrifying,’ she said.
 
‘The language is extreme, the ideologies that underpin them are dangerous, but we need to be able to confront them and confront why they’ve emerged.’
 
Consumers, she said, are often looking to ‘personality-led content that they believe they can trust, because the person in front of them feels like their friend’.
 
With a social media algorithm feeding off a person’s uncertainty, and curating content that reinforces single viewpoints, this can be a challenge for those tasked with providing balanced, evidence-based information, Ms Ferguson explained.
 
But GPs can ‘challenge and push back on these narratives in practice with empathy’ – a position Ms Ferguson said she can relate to in her role breaking down complex news to a young audience.
 
‘We are on the forefront of communicating with people about the everyday experiences in their lives, and how to make that [information] accessible, equitable, and digestible for them to take home, and not allow them to fester in fear and uncertainty,’ she said.
 
‘The first [step] is we need to meet people where they are by recognising why they trust creators.’
 
Shame is a key driver of clicks, Ms Ferguson said, and, for some, it might be a negative experience with a health professional that has led them to seek advice elsewhere.
 
‘There are a range of reasons and nuances as to why this can happen, but we need to understand that the way we’ve gotten to this pipeline of wellness and a rejection of science is often because people feel like they’re not being heard, they’re not being believed, they’re not being taken seriously,’ she said.
 
‘If we go into every clinical setting and dismiss someone’s concerns, or their fears, or their asks and needs, we’re not really going to be dealing with it but actually contributing to the problem where they feel dismissed and like they need to go and seek out another practitioner.’
 
Ms Ferguson spoke of the opportunity for GPs to engage and steer patients towards quality sources.

‘I don’t expect all of you with massive workloads to be taking on media engagement in this form, but I think it is an opportunity for all of us to think about how we can positively engage with practitioners and experts in this space who are doing a good job,’ she said.
 
‘You are trusted to make recommendations, you are trusted with information in your everyday lives as the experts.
 
‘Engaging in media, knowing what’s happening in the landscape, and being able to communicate positively about that, rather than just condemning all the misinformation, it’s one of the most helpful things we can do.’
 
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