Medical students’ experience with accessing medical records in Saudi Arabia: a descriptive study

BACKGROUND: Medical students can enhance their knowledge by accessing patients’ medical records and documenting patient care. This study assessed medical students’ access to paper medical records and electronic health records (EHRs) in Saudi Arabia and compared students’ experience of accessing paper medical records and EHR from their perspective. METHODS: This cross-sectional study enrolled second-year to intern medical students randomly from different medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. A self-developed survey was administered to them. It comprised 28 items in three sections: general information about medical students and their level of accessing medical records, their experience with the medical record system used in hospitals, and their preference for the medical record type. RESULTS: 62.8% of participants had access to medical records, with 66.1% of them having access to EHRs and 83.27% had read-only access. The EHR group and paper group mostly liked being able to reach medical records effortlessly (70.1% and 67.1%, respectively). The EHR group had a better experience compared to the paper group with U = 5200, Mean Rank = 122.73, P = .04. Students who trained in University – owned and National Guard hospitals had better experiences compared to students who trained in other hospitals with Mean Ranks =122.35, and 147.99, respectively. CONCLUSION: Incorporating EHR access into the medical curriculum is essential for creating new educational opportunities that are not otherwise available to medical students. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02715-7.