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 in Morris (Illinois) Daily Herald

Examples of electronic health record in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Boys are more likely to receive their autism diagnosis between the ages of 3 and 11, one 2024 review of electronic health records found. — Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2026

Tang’s latest study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, analyzed more than 3 million patient message threads from the Mass General Brigham electronic health record system. — Elise Haulund, CNN Money, 24 Aug. 2026

Scribes assist by entering patient data into the electronic health record. — Benjamin I. Lee, STAT, 24 Aug. 2026

The adoption of electronic health records didn’t eliminate all administrative and clinical roles. — Mudit Garg, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1993, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for electronic health record

• abhorred
• aboard
• accord
• adored
• afford
• award
• baseboard
• billboard
• blackboard
• boxboard
• breadboard
• broadsword

Medical Definition

electronic health record

noun

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

One of the key benefits of electronic health records is their ability to support coordinated care. They facilitate seamless data exchange between various providers, from primary care physicians to specialists …

—International Organization for Standardization

The traditional goal of progress notes is to provide a concise, up-to-date reflection of the patient's condition and the clinician's thought process. Electronic health records … allow physicians writing these notes to supplement traditional manual data entry with copied or imported text.

—Michael D. Wang et al., JAMA Internal Medicine