An EHR (Electronic Health Record) is a digital record of a patient’s medical history — diagnoses, medications, lab results, immunisations, allergies, treatment plans, and clinical notes. It’s maintained by healthcare providers and designed to be shared across different clinical settings.
EHRs replaced paper charts and have become the standard in modern healthcare delivery.
You’ll hear this when…
EHR is a daily term in clinical environments, health IT, and health-tech companies. Doctors and nurses interact with the EHR system for nearly every patient encounter — documenting visits, ordering tests, prescribing medications, and reviewing history.
Major EHR vendors include Epic, Cerner (now Oracle Health), and MEDITECH. If someone asks “which EHR are you on?” they’re asking which software system a hospital or clinic uses.
In health-tech, EHR integration is a common product requirement. Building software that works alongside or pulls data from existing EHR systems is a significant engineering challenge.
EHR vs. EMR
The terms are often used interchangeably, but there’s a technical distinction. An EMR (Electronic Medical Record) is a digital chart used within a single practice. An EHR is designed to be shared across organisations — it travels with the patient. In practice, most modern systems are EHRs, and the industry has largely moved toward using “EHR” as the standard term.
Source: Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)