Introduction: Family medicine as a part of the primary health care is devoted to provide continuous and comprehensive health care to the individuals and families regardless of age, gender, types of diseases and affected system or part of the body. Special emphasis in such holistic approach is given to the prevention of diseases and health promotion. Family Medicine is the first step/link between doctors and patients within patients care as well as regular inspections/examinations and follow-up of the health status of healthy people. Most countries aspire to join the European Union and therefore adopting new regulations that are applied in the European Union. Aim: The aim of this study is to present the role and importance of family medicine, or where family medicine is today in 21 Century from the beginning of development in these countries. The study is designed as a descriptive epidemiological study with data from 10 countries of the former Communist bloc, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, just about half of them are members of the EU. We examined the following variables: socio-organizational indicators, health and educational indicators and health indicators. The data used refer to 2002 and as a source of data are used official data from reference WebPages of family medicine doctors associations, WONCA website (EURACT, EQuiP, EGPRN), WebPages of Bureau of Statistics of the countries where the research was conducted as well as the Ministries of Health. Results: Results indicates that the failures and shortcomings of health care organizations in Southeast Europe. Lack of money hinders the implementation of health care reform in all mentioned countries, the most of them that is more oriented to Bismarck financing system. Problems in the political, legal and economic levels are obstacles for efficient a problem reconstructing health care system toward family medicine and primary prevention interventions. The population is not enough educated for complicated enforcement for and prevention of diseases that have a heavy burden on the budget. Health insurance and payment of health services is often a problem, because the patients must be treated regardless of their insurance coverage and financial situation. The decrease in production and economic growth, as well as low gross national income in the countries with economic crisis, lead to the inability of treatment for a large number of the population. Such situation a system leads to additional debts and loans to healthcare system. Measures implemented for provision of acute curative care largely did not lead to improvements in the health status of the population. Educational and preventive measures, as well as higher standards for quality and accessibility of health care services for entire population in each country, especially those struggling are bound to joining the European Union and their implementation must start. The most A large number of medical institutions are is inefficient in health education and health promotion and must work to educate patients and families and increase the quality of preventive health services. Modernization of health care delivery and joining the European Union by increasing overall economic stability of countries is one of the primary goals of all countries in Southeast Europe.

Telemedicine itself is not the medical profession, it is not a medical specialty, but the way in which the medical profession conduct its activity. Therefore we are talking about tele otorhinolaryngology, tele cardiology or tele pathology. In the definition of a multitude of telemedicine that can be found in the literature is the following: Telemedicine is a system that supports the process of health care by providing ways and means for more efficient exchange of information that allows multitude of activities related to health care, including health care and health personnel, including education, administration and treatment. Telemedicine applications include tele diagnosis, tele consultation, tele monitoring, tele-care, tele consultations and remote access to information contained in one or more databases. It turned out that telemedicine is an important factor in technological, professional, financial and organizational uniformity of development of the health system. Telemedicine, although a new area, to a large extent already changed the ways of providing health care, and even more influence on the ways of designing the future of medicine.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLARED PAPERAIM SUMMARY. The development of the digital Information Communication Technology (ICT) has definitely changed healthcare system in all its areas. The development of standardized electronic medical record (EMR) make possible other forms of E-Health like transmural care, telemedicine etc. In this paper was described Health Information System (HIS) of Tuzla Canton and Brčko DC (whose citizens gravitate toward Tuzla Clinical Center). Tuzla Clinical Center is the only Clinic for tertiary healthcare in this region. To estimate level and types of the HIS, telecommunications and information management we have designed questionnaire. Based on this research we have presented current state of E-Health in Canton and the most important problems in this area. Also, based on this research and our experiences, we have identified the main directions of the HIS development, its standardization and integration as the base for E-Heath in Bosnia.