At the Department of Cardiology of the Technical University of Munich and the Deutsches Herzzentrum München cardiac disease patients are treated in close co-operation. In order to support the collaborative treatment as well as cardiological studies a distributed medical record (DMR) has been implemented on the basis of a Holter-ECG archiving and analysis system. Architecture, experiences and major benefits of the solution are reported in the paper. Between January 1995 and December 1997 6500 Holter-ECGs have been archived and analysed. The DMR is in routine operation since January 1996 for all heart catheter patients.