electronic health record

noun

plural electronic health records

: a digital collection of a patient's medical information (such as medications, immunizations, lab results, or diagnoses) : EHR

Electronic health records have become essential tools in medicine, replacing the rooms full of paper documents that were hard to maintain and subject to fires and other losses.

—Karen Weintraub

For our staff and providers, having one electronic health record means one login and one point of access for all patient information. For patients, it means having one portal for all medical records …

—John Wilcox, quoted at Morris (Illinois) Daily Herald

Examples of electronic health record in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The network uses electronic health records from nine US health systems to monitor vaccine effectiveness from season to season in various age groups. —Brenda Goodman, CNN Money, 22 Apr. 2026

For the past eight months, hundreds of health tech companies have been working to meet goals set out by the federal government to make patient records more portable, create systems that import patients’ data into providers’ electronic health records systems, and stand up various patient apps. —John Wilkerson, STAT, 9 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1993, in the meaning defined above