Mobile health is fast becoming a strategic priority at the Mayo Clinic.

“Mobile access is an assumed part of our patient-facing web strategy,” says Dr. Steve Ommen, medical director of Mayo Clinic Connected Care, the clinic’s web-driven health information networking program. “It’s a priority, driven from the top down.”

Going forward, Mayo has a number of new features planned for its mobile health and app program. But how quickly those new initiatives such as mobile payment roll out is tied closely to how fast Mayo is able to deploy a new nearly $1 billion electronic health records system from Epic Systems Corp.

Over the next two to three years Mayo is phasing out disparate and non-integrated electronic health records systems at its sprawling national healthcare system that consists of more than 70 hospitals and clinics across Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Georgia.

The first integration of the universal Epic electronic health records system will take place this fall for its hospitals and clinics in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Next year the deployment will continue at its main facility in Rochester, Minn., before coming to its remaining facilities in Arizona and Wisconsin, Ommen says.

Once the universal electronic health records system is in place, Mayo plans to roll out mobile capabilities such as the ability for patients to pay bills including their co-pays via their phone. Another planned initiative is sending out more personalized messages—or push notifications—reminding patients of upcoming doctor appointments.

The new mobile features and functions are scheduled to go live sometime in the next 12 months, but more exact release dates are tied to the systemwide rollout of the new Epic system, Ommen says. “When the new electronic health records system is up and running, we will also have an enhanced mobile platform that can be used for more personalized patient notifications,” Ommen says.

Mayo already has an advanced mobile health platform that’s being widely utilized by Mayo patients, he says. For example more than 500,000 users have downloaded Mayo’s main Connected Care Android and Apple apps.

Last year more than 1.1 million patient-initiated secure messages were sent via a mobile device to Mayo patients and nearly 10,000 patients were seen from appointments requested through the Mayo Clinic app.

In the past year Mayo also has updated its Connected Care app with new features that let patients view X-ray and other radiology images.

Other recent improvements Mayo has made to its app in the last six months include adding a “tell a friend” feature,” which allows patients to share Mayo Clinic appointment information with friends and family, and mobile access to Mayo Clinic Express Care, a digital medical examination service that, for a $49 fee, lets patients log into Mayo’s digital health portal, fill out a multi-question examination survey for 14 different minor health conditions such as cold and flu and receive a diagnosis.

The process takes about an hour to get a diagnosis and treatment plan back from a Mayo provider.

Mayo began working on an institution-wide mobile health initiative in 2012 with the rollout of a secure app in compliance with guidelines for patient information privacy based on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPPA. The app enabled patients to access their medical records, schedule appointments and receive reminders, get lab results and access health information and management tips from a slew of online publications and clinical trials.

Today about 50% to 55% of the traffic from all patients, providers, payers and others that connect to the Mayo Clinic and all of its various web programs, which includes dozens of mobile apps, is from desktop computers and 45% to 50% from web-enabled mobile devices.

But Mayo, which began working on a networked form of electronic medical records more than a decade ago, anticipates that within two years the majority of web traffic to MayoClinic.org and through its apps will stem from consumers on mobile devices.

“As our patient demographics change over time we expect mobile access to continue to increase,” Ommen says. “Mobile increases how patients can choose to interact with us by in-person, their desktop computer or their mobile device.”