Electronic health record: the impact on public health

ew electronic technologies have transformed the way health information is being recorded, stored, retrieved, and analyzed. Health care professionals can now access information more easily than ever before, making the management of patient information more effective. These changes have created an information management infrastructure that is suitable for monitoring community health. Today, public health agencies at state and local levels are integrating information systems to monitor selected community health outcomes. This paper reviews the developments in electronic health record systems during the past 20 years and shows how these changes have affected the ability to better assess community health at the local and regional levels. History