What is Scientific Performance

The authors provide a quantitative assessment of ICTs role in general practitioners (GPs) medical daily practice and scientific performance. They focus on the Portuguese underexplored context, where the health sector has been under pressure for wide and profound reforms. These reforms have been extensively relying on ICTs, namely on the Internet. Based on the responses of 342 GPs, the authors concluded that 94% uses the Internet and 57% agrees that the Internet is essential to their medical daily practice. GPs tend to use the Internet mainly for professional purposes. Our data shows that the Internet for the respondent GPs has a critical role on updating and improving their professional knowledge basis. They recognise, however, that the vast majority of GPs lack specific and general training in ICT-related technologies. Such training handicap uncovers that a large part of Portuguese GPs may be unable to reap the benefits of ICTs in their daily medical practice.