Table 1.

Electronic health record systems in Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Sweden, and the USA

Country	Description
Australia	In early 2019, the Australian government assigned citizens a secure, online health record. My Health Record aspires to house summary information uploaded from encounters with the health system nationwide.5
Canada	In Canada, 85% of family practice physicians, and 79% of specialist physicians report using an electronic medical record.15 However, only 22% of Canadians can access portions of their medical records electronically. No patients have access to their entire records.16
Chile	Chile has a two-tier health system, with public and private health insurance.17 Roughly, 73% of community hospitals, 68% of primary care networks and 50% of emergency care units use electronic health records.18 However, use of health information technology (IT) by patients is limited to making online appointments or accessing public health resources. If at all, citizens can access only very limited personal health information.
Japan	In Japan, health systems, hospitals and small practices work with various electronic health record systems. Citizens have the legal right to request medical records, but most are unaware of this opportunity. The majority of citizens do not have digital access to their health records, although apps are available that display lists of prescriptions available at pharmacies.19
Sweden	Swedish citizens have the right to receive copies of their medical records. The Swedish government established a national health information infrastructure connecting a national patient portal with all different electronic health record systems used in the country. The patient portal gives everyone access to their electronic health record, which is accessible using an ID based on a national personal identification number. Individual counties decide what information patients can access from their electronic health record systems. As of May 2020, 68.3% of citizens had logged into the patient portal account, and 36.8% had accessed their record through the portal at least once.20
The USA	About 80% of doctors, and nearly all hospitals in the USA use electronic health records.21 In 2017, a little over half of patients reported offers of online access to their records, either by their providers or by their insurers. Among them, a little more than half registered on their health systems’ secure portals and viewed their records at least once.22 Health providers control what patients can and cannot access through these portals.