Introduction Electronic medical records (EMRs) are the future of primary care. Transition to electronic records can have a significant impact on physicians, office staff, nursing staff and patients. There are no published EMR studies combining these four populations or studies that have evaluated the impact of EMR demonstrations. To better understand the impact of EMRs, an online survey was administered before and after EMR demonstrations. Methods A longitudinal cohort survey design was used to assess primary outcomes (attitudes, knowledge, skills and needs) related to EMRs in four populations that were divided into two groupsone of physicians and the other of nursing staff, office staff and patients. A total of 39 participants (19 physicians and 20 staff/patients) completed a pretest survey four weeks prior to and post-test surveys at four and ten weeks after EMR demonstrations. Mean composite scores for each primary outcome were calculated for each group and mean differences were calculated and compared within and between groups -from baseline to four weeks