The electronic health record has become a critical part of the patient, provider, and data care triad.  However, the aspirations of advocates for the advancement of the EHR have led to an unwieldy and, more often than not, disappointing present state. This talk will discuss the rationale for and trajectory of the evolving partnership between patients, providers, and data, describe factors contributing to the current state of electronic health records and provide some predictions about the future direction of electronic health records.