Electronic Health Record (EHR) Studies

Electronic health records (EHRs) are digital versions of patients’ medical records. Doctors and other providers update EHRs each time a patient receives healthcare. EHRs typically include information about a patient’s age, sex, race and ethnicity, diagnoses, symptoms, test results, and medications.

EHR data can help researchers answer questions like:

• Who is most likely to have Long COVID, even if they’ve not been diagnosed with the condition?
• How does Long COVID affect people over time?
• Which treatments might be most helpful for people suffering from symptoms of Long COVID?

Researchers use advanced computer programs called machine learning algorithms to gain insights from EHRs. These algorithms can quickly read, analyze, and identify patterns in millions of EHRs.

Because EHRs allow researchers to study very large groups of people from many different backgrounds, findings from these studies can also inform a broad range of future studies, including clinical trials.

EHR studies do not work directly with participants. Instead, RECOVER works with 3 nationwide US healthcare networks with more than 60 million patients, including more than 7 million adults and children who’ve had COVID-19. The 3 networks that share EHRs with RECOVER are:

• National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C)
• PCORnet
• PEDSnet

RECOVER also works with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program. Together, these collections make up one of the largest sets of EHRs in the world.

RECOVER follows strict data privacy rules to protect personal health information.

EHR studies are part of the RECOVER Observational Cohort Studies. The RECOVER Observational Studies Consortium consists of 4 cores that support the operations of the studies. The RECOVER Observational Consortium Steering Committee (OCSC) provides scientific leadership, operational oversight, and program coordination for observational cohort studies.

Read about observational cohort study structure and leadership.