According to the website e-Patients.net:
“Tom Ferguson coined the term e-patients to describe individuals who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions. He envisioned health care as an equal partnership between e-patients and health professionals and systems that support them. Before Tom’s untimely death in 2006, he was writing the White Paper (PDF) in consultation with the group of advisors he dubbed the e-Patient Scholars Working Group.”