Objective To investigate the current status and development of electronic health records (EHR) at home and abroad to grasp the development trends of EHR, so as to point out the direction of the development and relevant research on EHR. Methods Based on the Web of Science citation database and the principle of bibliometrics, we analyzed the retrieved literature in aspects of publication date, language, country/region, institution, author, etc. Results A total of 1 262 eligible studies were identified. The number of articles on EHR increased rapidly from only 2 in 1995 to 218 in 2012. In terms of country/region, the United States ranked the top in all countries (763 articles, accounting for 60.46%). In terms of institution, Harvard University ranked the top (135 articles, accounting for 10.70%). In terms of journal, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association ranked the top (106 articles, accounting for 8.40%). In terms of authors, David W. Bates ranked the top (45 articles, accounting for 3.57%). In terms of subject type, health care sciences services and medical informatics were mainly focused on. Conclusion The research on EHR has become a global hot spot and relevant bibliometrics will contribute to the timely and correctly grasp the whole picture of its development trends and main research direction.