WONCA Working Party: eHealth

eHealth

The vision of the WONCA eHealth Working Party is that digital health becomes a core component of general practice / family medicine / primary health care training, scholarship, and clinical practice in all nations.

Our mission is to promote thought leadership, knowledge exchange, and international collaboration to advance the science and implementation of digital health in primary care, with a focus on digital literacy, medical education, capacity building, accelerating the quintuple aim, addressing the digital divide, and supporting vulnerable populations.

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Convenor / Chair

Dr Pramendra Prasad Gupta (Nepal)

Email Chair

Dr Pramendra Prasad Gupta is Associate Professor in Department of General Practice and Emergency Medicine at BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, in the eastern part of Nepal. He is involved in clinical practice, research, teaching for undergraduates and postgraduates, ehealth and rural practice. He is a Life Direct Member of WONCA.

Since 2014 he has been the medical coordinator for the eHealth and Telemedicine Program of Eastern Nepal and it is a joint work with University of Geneva RAFT Project. Find out more about Pramendra

Deputy Chair: Dr Karen Kinder

Having joined the WONCA eHealth Working Party when it was still known as the Working Party on Informatics, Karen brings the historical perspective of eHealth to the WONCA Working Group. She also contributes insights from her network gained over decades of working in this space, not the least through her work for the Johns Hopkins University and the WHO.
Karen’s expertise focuses on the impact of digital solutions on the delivery of primary care, primarily on meso-level solutions such as risk stratification methodologies, electronic health records, unique patient identifiers, national standards of ensuring interoperability and data governance, as well as policy reform and implementation.

Secretary: Dr Liliana Laranjo (Australia)

Email: liliana.laranjo@sydney.edu.au
Dr Liliana Laranjo (MD MPH PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Community and Primary Health Care at Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, a joint position with the Western Sydney Primary Health Network (WentWest) and the Westmead Applied Research Centre. She has a background as a General Practitioner, with a MPH from Harvard and a PhD in Digital Health (Portugal). She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney. Her current research focuses on improving primary care and using digital health (smartphone applications, text messages, wireless devices, artificial intelligence) to promote behaviour change, patient-centred care, and primary and secondary prevention of chronic conditions.

Co-Convenor or other office bearers

Executive Members

• Dr Ana Luisa Neves (United Kingdom)

Email: ana.luisa.neves@imperial.ac.uk
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/ana.luisa.neves14

Dr Ana Luisa Neves is Associate Director / Advanced Research Fellow at Imperial NIHR PSTRC, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the use of health data and digital technologies to deliver safer, more effective, and patient-centred care. Ana qualified in Medicine and completed specialist training in General Practice, and has worked as a medical doctor in both high- and low-income countries. She is currently a part-time GP in North West London.

• Dr Keith Thompson (Canada), Adjunct Faculty Dept Family Medicine and Institute of Earth and Space Exploration University Western Ontario, IEEE SA Telehealth IC WG Lead (Email: kthomps@uwo.ca)

• Dr Unben Pillay
• Dr Raquel Gomez Bravo

Vision and Mission of WONCA Working Party on eHealth

Objectives of the WONCA Working Party on eHealth

The goals of the WONCA eHealth Working Party as defined in our 2021 Policy Statement (link to policy document) are to:

• Create and disseminate information and resources regarding digital solutions as needed to support family/general practice;
• Draft guidelines on digital health interventions and innovations;
• Advocate for digital health recognition in health policy, family doctor remuneration, and family doctor training;
• Develop curriculum for family doctor training and offer such training;
• Accredit interventions (apps, EHRs, etc.) designed to support family doctors that meet predetermined standards;
• Develop productive working relationships with other international digital health-oriented organizations;
• Ensure that WONCA members are kept informed of trends in digital tools impacting primary care and family medicine;
• Advocate for high-quality digital health research and facilitate collaborations to advance research and evidence in the area.

Publications & Documents

Activities

In 2021 the WONCA eHealth Working Party started a collaboration with the World Health Organization Department for Digital Health and Innovation (leaning on an existing Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations), in partnership with IEEE (https://ieee.org) and the Public Health Foundation of India (https://phfi.org/). Our collaborative effort has involved regular monthly meetings to define priorities for digital health in terms of research and clinical practice, with an initial focus on defining guidelines for implementation of digital health tools to promote self-care in the context of non-communicable diseases.

History

The first workshop meeting of the WONCA Informatics Working Party took place at the WONCA Regional meeting in Stockholm in July 1996. Since then, the working party has presented workshops and symposiums on information management and technology at most of the WONCA conferences. The aims are to share knowledge and ideas, assist in the education and training of GPs in the field of informatics and to develop projects which encourage the optimal use of digital health in general practice. The WONCA Working Party on Informatics changed its name to the WONCA eHealth Working Party in 2015.