• The general practitioners of Europe are just as dependent on relevant, well-functioning ICT as on their stethoscope.
• Access to sufficient health information is necessary to give the best service to our patients. We support sharing of data between health care professionals treating the same patient.
• Patients expect to have safe, relevant and user friendly eHealth solutions enabling them to manage their health challenges. UEMO supports this.
• Core values of Family Medicine like continuity of care, equality, equity and ease of access, non-maleficence (the principle of not harming patients), confidentiality and coordinated care must be augmented and not compromised, by eHealth.
• Awareness of unwanted and non evidence-based task shifting between different health care professionals, and/or between patients and their health care professionals, as well as all other side effects of eHealth, is essential.
• Decisions on eHealth must be based on knowledge, and consider patient’s and general practitioner’s experiences and needs.
• General practitioners must, together with patients and other health care professionals, be part of an open and continuous dialogue with decision makers concerning future eHealth developments on all levels of management. HTA is a good example of such cooperation (see UEMO-HTA position paper).
• No eHealth (including “Artificial intelligence”) solutions can encompass the diversity of patients without the support of a health care professional, like a general practitioner.
• We prefer the concept of using Augmented intelligence in lieu of Artificial intelligence, reflecting the utility of such systems in supporting human decision making.
• ICT and the generated workload implications must be properly resourced.
• Treatment or extraction of data from general practitioner’s systems must have a legal basis, with patient consent for data not anonymised, and must follow data protection rules. A special vigilance must be paid to third party demands for data.
• Patient safety and data security is the bedrock for eHealth systems. Systems must ensure data security and patient safety.