WONCA Working Party: Digital Health

Digital Health

The vision of the WONCA Working Party on Digital Health 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.

In January 2026, the WONCA Executive Committee approved the renaming of the Working Party on eHealth to the Working Party on Digital Health.

Join our working party

Convenor / Chair

Dr Ana Luisa Neves (Portugal)

Dr. Ana Luisa Neves is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Digital Health and Director of the Global Digital Health Unit (GDHU), a hub for healthcare innovation. Leading a multidisciplinary team, she focuses on developing evidence-based digital solutions for healthcare delivery and public health research. With over 15 years of research experience, Ana has authored >40 papers in peer-reviewed journals and leads doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in exploring the use of digital technologies for patient-centered care. Ana, a medical doctor with training in General Practice, earned her PhD from Imperial College London in 2018. Her diverse background includes roles at esteemed institutions like Institut National de la Santé et Recherche Médicale (Paris) and Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School Affiliate (Boston). Between 2017-2023, she held roles at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, including Associate Director/Advanced Research Fellow at Imperial NIHR Patient Safety Translational Research. Ana is the Module Lead for Digital Health at Imperial College London and also holds a post as Associate Professor at the University of Porto, where she leads modules in Health Data Science. Additionally, Ana serves on the Executive Board of the European General Practice Research Network and the Working Party on eHealth of the World Organisation of General Practice.

Email Chair

Deputy Chair: 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.

Honorary Secretary: Nick Guldemond (The Netherlands)

Co-Convenor or other office bearers

Executive Members

Edmond Li – Deputy Chair
Steven van de Vijver – Secretary
Vinicius Anjos de Almeida – Workstream Lead, Research
Hüsna Sarıca Çevik – Workstream Lead, Training & Capacity Building
Joana Teixeira – Workstream Lead, Community & Engagement
Raluca Zoitanu – Executive Board Member

Past Chair: Pramendra Prasad

Vision and Mission of WONCA Working Party on Digital Health

Objectives of the WONCA Working Party on Digital Health

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

We are overjoyed to announce that we were honored to win one of the WONCA Collaborative Funds! While we will delve into the details in our next meeting, feel free to spread this fantastic news on social media. You can either post about it or reshare from the WONCA World profile. Your support in amplifying our achievement is greatly appreciated!

👩‍⚕️ Our Digital Health Training Initiative: We are proud to share that our research project has been selected for a global crowdfunding campaign, backed by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA). This project is a vital step towards bridging the gap in digital health training for General Practitioners.

🎯 Our Mission: We aim to assess the current digital health training for doctors, identify their needs, and develop recommendations for incorporating these essentials into medical curricula. This initiative is crucial for leveraging technology effectively in healthcare.

🤖 We Need Your Support: Your contribution, no matter how small, is crucial in driving the future of medical education and improving patient outcomes. Join us in this transformative journey to empower General Practitioners and create a healthcare system ready for the 21st century's challenges!

🔗 How to Contribute:

- Please visit our crowdfunding page to make your contribution: https://lnkd.in/eGNGEnwj

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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. In January 2026, the WONCA Executive Committee approved the renaming of the Working Party on eHealth to the Working Party on Digital Health.