Electronic health record

An electronic health record is a way of keeping the record of a person's health problems and treatments in electronic form so that it can be shared by health workers in different places. It can let people see their own health records and add to them. They also let scientists study many records so they can see patterns. They are also used to make bills.

Public health EHRs are used to monitor communities for infectious diseases and other health risks as well as to assist individual patients and families. They are systematic records used for statistical analysis and policy decision-making through visualization.^[1]

Getting these records shared over large areas and between different organizations can take time and a lot of money. When it is done, it can save a lot of time and money.^[2]

Deadlines to set up shared electronic records in various parts of the English National Health Service have been missed several times.^[3] The latest plan was to "raise every NHS trust to a “core” level of digitisation by March 2025". When NHS Digital was closed in 2023 the money was mostly used for other things.^[4]

Electronic health record is the more comprehensive version of Electronic medical record that includes data from all providers and settings where a patient receives care.^[5]