Purpose
The information contained in the medical record allows health care providers to provide continuity of care to individual patients. The medical record also serves as a basis for planning patient care, documenting communication between the health care provider and any other health professional contributing to the patient's care, assisting in protecting the legal interest of the patient and the health care providers responsible for the patient's care, and documenting the care and services provided to the patient. In addition, the medical record may serve as a document to educate medical students/resident physicians, to provide data for internal hospital auditing and quality assurance, and to provide data for medical research. Personal health records combine many of the above features with portability, thus allowing a patient to share medical records across providers and health care systems

Format
Traditionally, medical records have been written on paper and kept in folders. These folders are typically divided into useful sections, with new information added to each section chronologically as the patient experiences new medical issues. Active records are usually housed at the clinical site, but older records (e.g., those of the deceased) are often kept in separate facilities.

The advent of electronic medical records has not only changed the format of medical records but has increased accessibility of files. The use of an individual dossier style medical record, where records are kept on each patient by name and illness type originated at the Mayo Clinic out of a desire to simplify patient tracking and to allow for medical research.