What Is an Electronic Health Record?

Electronic Health records present a major step forward in patient care, helping to ensure continuity of care and to cut down on health care costs.

Function

Electronic Health Records, or EHRs, serve as a one-stop clearinghouse for all of your medical information. They allow health care providers to easily access everything they need to know to better aid in your recovery.

Size

The EHRs are digital, so they can be as big as they need to be, without the downside of having to be stored in a filing cabinet, as do paper records.

Information

A variety of different types of information can be stored in the EHR. Doctors' notes, images such as from X-rays, lab test results, and overall treatment notes can all be included.

Benefits

Before the advent of EHRs, your medical records could have been stored in several different places within a hospital. EHRs allow all that information to be collected and accessed by typing in an identifier, such as your Social Security Number.

Warning

Not every hospital or physician practice has these systems because they are very expensive.

Resources

• Electronic Health Records