The electronic patient record (EPR) is a personal collection of health-related documents. These could include, for example, your hospital discharge report, Spitex (home care) report, medication list, X-ray findings, or vaccination card.

Via a secure internet connection, this information is accessible at any time both for you and for your healthcare professionals – on a PC or smartphone, at home or wherever you happen to be. But you decide yourself who can see which documents, and when. The medical information in the EPR belongs to you, so you decide how it is to be used.

In an emergency, thanks to the EPR, important information is available rapidly, even if you are not able to provide it yourself.

Anyone in Switzerland can open an EPR. The EPR is voluntary and free and can be closed again at any time. Although it is called “patient record”, you don’t need to be sick to open one. A healthy person can also open an EPR. The EPR is voluntary and free for people in Switzerland.

Obligation for facilities offering in-patient treatment and doctor’s surgeries registered from 2022

Acute care hospitals, rehabilitation centres, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and birthing centres plus doctor’s surgeries newly registered from 2022 are obliged to join the EPR.

Voluntary for other specialists in the healthcare sector and the general public

EPR affiliation for specialists in the healthcare sector as well as for doctors registered before 2022, pharmacists, Spitex providers and physiotherapists is at their own discretion.

Persons and organisations not involved in patient care cannot access the EPR. Accordingly, the EPR cannot be accessed by employers, authorities, health insurers, supplementary insurance providers or life insurers. Nor can EPR documents be examined by a health insurer’s independent medical adviser.