The term “Electronic Medical Record” (EMR) is used in North America to mean a collection of software sub-systems including the patient record, order entry system, lab information system, radiology information system, cardiology information system and so forth. In the 1990s and 2000s, there were competing vendors for each sub-system. Leading vendors today provide an integrated solution which includes many or most of these sub-systems, with the largest providing 20 or more modules. EMRs were once typically hosted in health system data centers, but are increasingly hosted in either health system-managed 3rd-party cloud or EMR vendor-provided cloud.
The term “Electronic Patient Record” (EPR) is used worldwide to refer to a software system which digitizes the patient chart or record. It is usually accompanied by a Patient Administration System or PAS. EPRs and PASs are sometimes referenced synonymously with EMRs, but this risks confusion on the actual scope of software being provided.