System and method for recruiting patients for medical research across a vast patient population

A system and method for recruiting participants for medical research over an extended computer network is disclosed. The system and method comprise an enhanced services server built on the same architecture as a plurality of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, an input device configured to receive search criteria corresponding to clinical criteria that a patient must satisfy to qualify to participate in the medical research, search functionality configured to search the patient data captured by each of the plurality of EHR systems based on the search criteria, an output device configured to output data for a plurality of qualifying patients identified by the search functionality as satisfying the search criteria, and messaging functionality configured to send an electronic message via a network connection to one or more healthcare provider sites at which patient data for at least one of the plurality of qualifying patients was captured, wherein, upon receiving authorization in response to the request, the researcher can access the patient-identifying information associated with the patient data for the at least one of the plurality of qualifying patients identified with the output data and use it to recruit that patient for medical research.