Today, electronic medical records (EMRs) serve as digital versions of the paper charts found in a clinician’s office. They contain a patient’s medical and treatment history in one practice, while electronic health records (EHRs)  focus on the total health of the patient and go beyond standard clinical data collected in a provider’s office. 

The EMR began as an idea of recording patient information in electronic form instead of on paper.In the late 1960s, Dr. Lawrence Weed presented the EMR concept to generate an electronic record to allow a third party to independently verify the diagnosis. Touted as the Problem-Oriented Medical record (POMR), Weed’s concept focused on clinical data management.The first EMR was developed in 1972 by the Regenstreif Institute and was seen as a major advancement in the medical industry. But as a result of high costs, it was only mainly used by government hospitals. By the 1990s, the emergence of the internet made computers more common and affordable, which allowed the Institute of Medicine to project that most physicians would be using computers to improve patient care by 2000.

The 2000s saw a new wave of EHRs built around security requirements that are still around today, including physical, technical, and administrative safeguards, while leaders in the industry began to move toward more integrated and centralized systems. By 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was born, ensuring more privacy and security for patient data and making security compliancy easier with the introduction of encryption, access controls with individual authentication, and stronger audit trail features.