Aprima Medical Software is the latest electronic health records (EHR) vendor to go mobile. The Carrolton, Texas-based company once known as iMedica this week unveiled Aprima Mobile, an iOS and Android app that provides smartphone access to Aprima's core ambulatory system.

"It's suitable for use on an iPad, though it's not optimized," Mark Richards, Aprima senior vice president of sales and marketing, tells MobiHealthNews. The same thing is true for Android tablets. He said than an iPad-optimized version is in the works.

The app, actually released July 10 in the Apple App Store and July 13 on Google Play, offers both EHR and practice management functionality, as Aprima sells an integrated system built on a single database. It pulls live data from existing users' databases, regardless of whether the practice has an in-house client-server setup or the cloud-based, software-as-a-service version of the desktop system.

"It's primarily for the EHR," Richards says. An optional revenue-cycle management module for the desktop system is "at at its purest, an outsourcing service," according to Richards, something physicians likely would not need at the point of care. "It's not intended for them to run all of their financial reports from the smartphone," Richards explains about the app.

"From checking schedules to viewing patient records, and responding to messages, we're helping physicians become more productive and responsive outside the walls of their practice, using their smartphones and the power of their Aprima software," President and CEO Michael Nissenbaum says in a company statement. The app also supports secure clinical messaging.

Aprima Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jeffrey Hyman, a primary care physician at University Physician Group in New York City, has been heavily involved in testing the app. "It seems I am always on the go, always dealing with some issue revolving around a patient, a lab or an office problem. The mobility of the Aprima app on my smartphone allows me to handle important issues quickly and efficiently and practice a higher quality of medicine," he says in the statement.

While the app is a free download from the App Store and Google Play, access requires a subscription.

Aprima does not have a user count for the new app, but the company is holding its annual user conference in two weeks. "I expect we'll see a lot of uptake there," Richards says.