Ashley Blacker

About me

I am an experienced medical marketing and business development professional with sub-specialised skills in medical advertising and communications, digital marketing, website development and internet technology.

I founded Medsolve in 2018 and since then, we have built over 100+ websites for Australian-based doctors (see our portfolio for examples) and we securely host and manage over 120+ websites. We also perform the digital patient marketing for over 70+ specialists and clinics around Australia, evidencing the trust clients place in our reputation.

As a background, from 2008-2018 (10+ years), I worked continuously within the Australian healthcare sector in marketing and business development roles spanning both the private and public sectors, providing a level of industry understanding and medical knowledge that is necessary to do this job well given it is so technocratic and heavily regulated by AHPRA. Previously employers include:

• Group Homes Australia (dementia / high-care / palliative care)
• Healthe Care Australia (35+ private hospitals around Australia: surgical / medical / rehab / psychiatric hospitals around Australia)
• Evolution Healthcare (10+ private hospitals around Australia: surgical / medical / rehab / radiology clinics)
• The Woolcock Institute of Medical Research (research / sleep and respiratory medicine)
• St Vincent Public Hospital Sydney (Manager of Senior Medical Officers)
• Eastbrooke Medical Centres (Australia-wide general practice corporate)
• Ochre Health Medical Centre (Australia-wide general practice / rural ED hospital VMO / medical recruitment corporate)
• Software AG / WebMethods (global software company)

Working across both the primary and tertiary sectors was an excellent foundation for understanding how the sectors interact, the underlying referral network, and the relevant patient trends in elective surgery and ancillary clinical services.

My responsibilities within the medical sector have largely involved:

• New patient marketing and GP referral development for specialists / private hospitals
• New resident marketing for the aged care sector
• Study participant marketing for research organisations
• Opening new medical centres / clinics / service development
• Radiology and medical imaging marketing
• AHPRA-compliant digital patient marketing strategy
• Website design and development, user interface and SEO / AI content strategy
• Business strategy for specialists and healthcare corporates
• GP recruitment for rural and regional medical centres

I have been solely responsible for managing medical marketing budgets of up to $500,000 pa for various healthcare companies, which granted me licence to experiment on a range of marketing strategies and platforms to develop an appreciation of what works to increase patient numbers, and what doesn’t.

I founded Medsolve in 2018 as I identified what I considered to be a gap in the market for a digital marketing agency that offered doctors access to marketing professionals who have truly worked within the industry at the highest level, as opposed to mainly generic digital marketing agencies that tend to work with plumbers, electricians and florists, or worse, fake medical marketing agencies that were popping up that offer staff with no healthcare sector employment experience or knowledge when scrutinised closely.

The reality is, medical marketing is an advanced area of marketing, which relies heavily on sector-experience, medical terminology, medical science, a thorough understanding of private health insurance dynamics, what constitutes an elective procedure, the demographics of diseases, and the supply and demand of competing services in specific regions. In addition, a complete understanding of AHPRA’s guidelines is also mandatory. At risk is your reputation.

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my wife, my two kids, playing the drums, the outdoors, mountain bike riding, cooking, philosophy,  cosmology and astronomy.