From research to reality: how a decade of partnership is changing the way GPs use evidence

When Therapeutic Guidelines Limited (TGL) and the Australian General Practice Research Foundation (Foundation), the philanthropic arm of RACGP, first partnered in 2012, the goal was straightforward: fund GP-led research to help GPs use evidence-based clinical guidelines more effectively in everyday practice.

More than a decade later that partnership has built a body of work that has directly shaped how Therapeutic Guidelines is designed, what it covers and how it reaches the GPs who rely on it most. 

The pattern is consistent

Across every project, the approach is the same. Research identifies the gap. Evidence reaches TGL directly. The guidelines or the platform changes. GPs are better equipped. Patients receive better care.

That consistency is not a coincidence. It reflects a shared understanding between TGL and the Foundation that the gap between evidence and practice is rarely a knowledge problem. It is a design problem, a usability problem, and sometimes an awareness problem. The partnership funds research that identifies exactly where those problems sit and works to fix them.

Partnership research highlights 

The following represents some of the work this partnership has funded across recent projects.

Multimorbidity | Emeritus Professor Mieke van Driel

Most clinical guidelines are written for single conditions. Most patients have more than one. In 2018, Emeritus Professor Mieke van Driel tackled this mismatch directly, developing and testing a prototype toolkit that makes complex, overlapping guidance more manageable at the point of care. Findings were embedded into GP registrar education, contributed to an international Elsevier textbook on multimorbidity, and informed a national webinar series for GPs across Australia.

Antibiotic prescribing quality improvement | A/Prof Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis

GPs were prescribing antibiotics without reliable feedback on whether their practice aligned with guidelines. In 2019, A/Prof Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis designed Guidance GP, a quality improvement program giving GPs direct data on their own prescribing. Three participating practices changed how they prescribed. The program earned the GP20 Peter Mudge Medal, was presented to the Australian Government's Antimicrobial Resistance Section, and contributed to A/Prof Manski-Nankervis being awarded a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Next Generation Clinical Scientist Fellowship. Patient information sheets developed from this work are now publicly available through the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship.

Mastitis management | Professor Lisa Amir

Despite mastitis being one of the most common reasons new mothers see a GP, very little was known about how Australian GPs actually managed it. In 2020, Professor Lisa Amir's team analysed over 25,000 GP consultations and found that while antibiotic selection largely followed Therapeutic Guidelines, significant gaps existed: analgesia was not referenced in the guidelines at all, and breast milk culture was ordered in fewer than one per cent of consultations. Their recommendations informed direct revisions to the mastitis guidelines and two articles were published in BMC Primary Care and BMJ Open.

Antibiotic decision support tools | Dr Mina Bakhit

Therapeutic Guidelines had introduced decision support tools and patient-facing resources to help GPs make better antibiotic prescribing decisions. The problem was that many GPs did not know they existed. In 2020, Dr Mina Bakhit's research exposed that awareness gap and TGL responded by redesigning how those resources appear on their platform, making them more visible at the point of care. 

Psychotropic prescribing in pregnancy and breastfeeding | A/Prof Jacqueline Frayne

GPs managing perinatal mental health face one of the most complex prescribing decisions in general practice, yet training in this area was limited and awareness of available resources was low. In 2021, A/Prof Jacqueline Frayne's research found that Therapeutic Guidelines was the most used and most helpful resource GPs had, and identified where it needed to go further. The research has since changed how GP registrars in Western Australia are trained, with perinatal mental health now embedded in women's health rotations at the state's tertiary obstetric hospital. 

Guidelines for patients from disadvantaged groups | Prof Liz Sturgiss

Clinical guidelines are rarely designed with equity in mind. In 2022, Prof Liz Sturgiss examined how GPs use guidelines when caring for patients from disadvantaged groups and found that both how guidelines are developed and how they are used in practice can perpetuate inequity. Her findings informed updates to the guidelines and led to Prof Sturgiss being invited to join the Editorial Advisory Committee for Australian Prescriber. 

Medical abortion in general practice | Dr Sonia Srinivasan

Access to abortion care in Australia remains inequitable, and general practice is one of the most important settings for closing that gap. In 2024, Dr Sonia Srinivasan interviewed thirty GPs and GPs-in-training about how they use the Therapeutic Guidelines' topic on medical abortion and what they actually needed from it. Her findings went directly to TGL editors. The next revision of the topic will reflect what GPs told her: more practical legislative detail, clearer guidance on managing complications, and better usability at the point of care.

The broader impact

For more than a decade, this partnership has generated peer-reviewed publications, national and international conference presentations, new GP training pathways, patient resources used across the country, and research careers. It has contributed to National Health and Medical Research Council, MRFF and government grant applications built on its foundation. And it has directly influenced how Therapeutic Guidelines is written, structured and delivered to the clinicians who use it.

Applications Open 11 May to 22 June 2026

Today, the 2026 TGL Quality Use of Medicines Research Grant will open and offer $100,000 for early to mid-career GP researchers investigating how clinical guidelines are used, implemented and translated into everyday prescribing and patient care.

Applications are open from 11 May to 22 June 2026.

Find out more and apply on the Foundation website.