Is the National Registration website (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) effective in tracking Australian medical graduates' rural work?

ObjectiveThis study compared rural location identified through the National Registration (AHPRA) registry with location obtained through labour-intensive personal contact. DesignLongitudinal cohort study with two methods to identify the work locations of medical graduates from The Rural Clinical School of Western Australia (RCSWA). ParticipantsConsenting alumni from the University of Western Australia and the University of Notre Dame Fremantle participating in RCSWA between 2002 and 2009 inclusive and available to contact in 2011. Main outcome measurePercentage location matches between two contact methods. ResultsThere was 80% agreement for principal suburb, 92% agreement for principal city and 94% agreement for principal state between RCSWA personal contact and the AHPRA registry. AHPRA identified nearly two times as many graduate locations. However, there was only 31% agreement for a rural placement location (of any length). In more detail, for year-long rural placement, personal contact was 88% concordant with AHPRA; work six months or more were less concordant (44% agreement); work less than six months were not concordant (4% agreement). ConclusionsAHPRA data matched RCSWA alumni data only for graduates in full-time rural work. Since medical alumni spend up to 10 years in pre-vocational and vocational training, which includes many rural options, personal contact was able to pick up the myriad of rural choices, whereas the AHPRA database was not sensitive enough to identify them. Until graduates have stably finished training, the optimal method to identify rural work is through personal contact but statistical correction for missing data needs to be considered.