eClinicalWorks, a Westborough, Mass.-based EHR vendor, has announced it's launching a patient engagement-focused initiative on the back of a $25 million investment in the area over the next 12 months. eClinicalWorks, which boasts of eight million users for its patient portal, says it will focus on developing a mobile app for patients that gives patients access to their own and family electronic health records (EHRs).

In the press release announcing this initiative, eClinicalWorks also reported results of an online survey of 2,291 healthcare professionals that it conducted. According to the results of the survey, 93 percent of physicians find value in having a mobile health app connected to EHRs. In addition, eClinicalWorks found that 93 percent of physician respondents believe that mobile health apps can improve a patient’s health outcome.

“In order to transform healthcare, patients need to be engaged,” Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, said in a statement. “People are invested in and want to be engaged in their health as long as they trust the source of the information. We are confident the tools delivered through Healow will be successful due to the foundation we have built with more than 220,000 medical providers and because its solutions bring together cutting-edge technology and a critical component – the medical provider.”

eClinicalWorks will make the free app available through its business unit, Health & Online Wellness (healow). It will be available for iOs and Android devices.