Electronic patient record

What is the electronic patient record?

The electronic patient record, EPR for short (in German elektronisches Patientendossier, EPD), is a digital store for your health information. The law describes it as a virtual record: the documents are held in a decentralised way by the healthcare institutions involved, but are made accessible via the EPR in a specific treatment case. You yourself can access your data at any time and add your own documents.

Typical contents are hospital discharge reports, laboratory results, X-ray reports, your current medication list, vaccinations, allergies, an advance directive or your decision on organ donation. According to the law, the aim is to improve the quality of treatment, make processes safer, avoid duplicate examinations and strengthen patients’ health literacy.

The EPR is not a product offered by health insurers. It is run by what are known as communities and reference communities, which are certified associations of healthcare institutions. The reference community is your provider: you open your record with it, and it manages your consent and your access rights. The EPR is nevertheless relevant to basic health insurance: many service providers that bill basic health insurance must join, and the health insurance card can serve as a means of identification.

The Federal Act on the Electronic Patient Record (EPDG) has been in force since 2017, and it has been possible to open an EPR since 2020. According to the Swiss Federal Audit Office, the EPR has not yet been successfully rolled out. The Federal Council therefore wants to develop the EPR further into an electronic health record (E-HR); the bill is before Parliament. Until then, the current EPR continues to apply unchanged.

How it works

Opening a record

You choose a reference community and open your record there. To do so, you give your express consent after being informed about how your data will be processed. To access the EPR, you need a secure electronic identity. The Federal Council decides which means of identification are permitted; under the Federal Health Insurance Act (KVG), the health insurance card issued by your insurer can be used as a means of identification.

Access rights

You decide who sees your data. After you open the record, a default setting applies, which you can change:

• You grant access rights to individual health professionals or to groups, such as the team at your GP practice.
• You can expressly exclude individual professionals from access.
• You can change the confidentiality level of individual documents.
• In a medical emergency, professionals may access data even without an access right, unless you have ruled this out. You will be informed of any such access.

Every processing operation is logged, and the logs are kept for ten years. This lets you see who accessed which document and when.

Who adds data

If you have an EPR, it is presumed in a treatment case that you agree to health professionals adding data relevant to your treatment. However, you cannot be obliged to make data from your EPR accessible, for example to an employer.

Who has to take part

Party	EPR
Patients	voluntary
Hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, psychiatric clinics	must join
Care homes and birth centres	must join
Doctors authorised since 01.01.2022	must join
Other outpatient health professionals	voluntary

Legal basis

The EPR is governed by the Federal Act on the Electronic Patient Record (EPDG). Art. 1 EPDG sets out its subject and purpose, and Art. 2 EPDG defines the EPR, health professionals, communities and reference communities. Art. 3 EPDG requires express consent (para. 1), allows it to be withdrawn at any time without giving reasons (para. 3) and states that nobody can be obliged to make data from their EPR accessible (para. 4).

Art. 7 EPDG requires a secure electronic identity for patients and professionals. Art. 8 EPDG gives you the right to access your data and to record your own data. Art. 9 EPDG governs access rights, including emergency access in para. 5. Art. 10 EPDG obliges communities to log every processing operation and reference communities to manage consents; para. 3 requires the logs to be kept for ten years. Since the amendment of 15.03.2024, the Confederation can grant reference communities financial aid for each record opened under Art. 23a EPDG, provided the cantons contribute at least the same amount.

In the KVG, Art. 39 para. 1 let. f obliges hospitals, and under para. 3 by analogy birth centres and care homes, to join a certified community or reference community. Art. 37 para. 3 KVG applies to doctors working in outpatient care who are newly authorised. Art. 42a para. 2bis KVG allows the health insurance card to be used as a means of identification under Art. 7 para. 2 EPDG.

Example: A hospital stay with an EPR

Ruth, 71, opened an EPR two years ago and gave her GP access. She expressly refused access to one particular practice. In March 2026 she is admitted to hospital for a planned operation.

Step	What happens with the EPR
Admission	Ruth gives the hospital team access. The anaesthetists see her medication list and allergies.
Stay	The hospital adds the surgical report and laboratory results.
Discharge	The discharge report goes into the EPR. Her GP can read it without Ruth having to forward it.
Afterwards	Ruth sees in the log who accessed her record and when. The excluded practice sees nothing.

The costs of the hospital stay are covered by basic health insurance independently of the EPR, subject to the deductible, the retention fee and the hospital contribution. The premium calculator shows which health insurer has the lowest premium for your details.

What this means for you

1. Make a conscious decision. An EPR is particularly worthwhile if you are being treated by several professionals, take medicines regularly or want to have your documents in one place.
2. Choose a provider. The overview of reference communities is on patientrecord.ch. Check there which means of identification they accept.
3. Set your access rights. Give your most important professionals access, decide on emergency access and check the confidentiality levels of sensitive documents.
4. Add your own documents. An advance directive, an organ donation declaration and emergency contacts can be found quickly in the EPR.
5. Check the log. From time to time, check who has accessed your record.

You do not need your health insurer for the EPR. For questions about benefits, invoices or the health insurance card, you will find the contact details of all health insurers under health insurers. You can save your calculations and comparisons on this website in your customer account. You will find more about your rights regarding health data under the term data protection, and about digital prescriptions under e-prescription.

Common mistakes

• Thinking the EPR is offered by your health insurer. The providers are the reference communities. The health insurer does not keep the record and has no access to it.
• Believing all doctors have to take part. The obligation applies to inpatient facilities and newly authorised doctors. Many existing practices are not connected.
• Never changing the default settings. If you do not check access rights and emergency access, you do not know exactly who may see what.
• Assuming the EPR is complete. It only contains what professionals or you yourself have added. Older reports are often missing.
• Keeping your advance directive only on paper. In the EPR it can be found faster in an emergency, provided you have added it there.