It’s been revealed that Sensei has won the $100K CardioEngagement Challenge sponsored by Novartis.

Sensei, who’s created a mobile app suite that’s described as a fully featured health and wellness program, leverages mobile phones as tracking devices to offer a holistic approach by integrating modules for healthy eating, fitness, weight management, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes.  Patients can track their health over time and even receive financial incentives in for the form of coupons and promotions to drive motivation and engagement.

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Back in December at the mHealth Summit, the Surgeon General’s office launched a challenge that called on mobile app developers to create apps in three different categories; healthy eating & nutrition; physical fitness/activity; and integrative health and well-being.

In the healthy eating category, joint winners were selected as “equally outstanding submissions,” including GoodGuide — an app that makes it easy to get the information you need about your food, personal care and household products to aid in making healthy decisions — as well as Fooducate, which uses barcode scanning to allow you to scan the products you buy to quickly get information on that food’s health value.

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Integrated Document Solutions (IDS) has announced that it will debut five new apps during next week’s HIMSS conference in Las Vegas.

According to a company press release, all five apps focus on “unifying worklists and improving accessibility.”  The apps allow providers to wirelessly authenticate verbal orders, dictate patient encounters, remotely sign reports, and document appropriate billing levels among other things.  The apps work across Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile devices.

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Novarus Mobile Technologies, a mobile application development firm out of Charlotte, North Carolina, has announced a change in focus from developing apps for a variety of industries to a 100% focus on the digital health app market going forward.  In addition, the company has hired a new executive with more than 25 years experience in the healthcare space to lead its charge.

Founded in 2002, Novarus creates apps for Android, iOS and RIM devices, with more than 65 apps already in its portfolio.  The company has changed its name to Novarus Healthcare and will focus on developing mobile health apps for hospitals, health systems, physician practices and others in the healthcare field.  The change in focus comes as ABI Research projects the market for mHealth apps will top $400 million in 2016, up from $120 million in 2010.

Kaiser Permanente, who already boasts the largest deployment of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in the world, today announced the launch of a new Android application to allow more than 9 million Kaiser patients to access their medical information on the go.

In addition to its Android app, the healthcare provider is also launching a newly mobile-optimized version of its website located at kp.org to allow anyone with a mobile device to still access their medical information when and where they need it.  Kaiser said it plans to launch a companion app for iOS in the coming months as well.  Through mobile access to their personal health information, Kaiser members now have secure access to lab results, diagnostic information, direct email communication with doctors, and the ability to order prescription refills among other things.

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Happtique, a company known for creating a mobile app store specifically for mobile health applications, has announced plans to form a blue-ribbon panel to oversee development of a new mobile healthcare app certification program.

The new certification program will help evaluate and certify new mHealth apps for both professionals and patients.  The certification program will specify quality and performance standards that focus on an app’s “clinical appropriateness and technical functionality.”

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In a new report from research firm Research2Guidance, the market for mobile health apps produced revenues of more than $718M in 2011, representing a seven fold increase for the year overall.

The report, aptly named “Mobile Health Market Report 2011-2016,” called the market for mobile health apps “embryonic” so far, noting that the amount of apps created by healthcare organizations has more than doubled over the past year.

The report also said the mHealth app market is expected to continue to become more sophisticated, as developers move beyond simple data-capture or data-reporting apps and into more complicated functions like chronic-care management, diagnostics and so on.  This is something that’s long overdue given the features and functionality of today’s smartphones.  Not to mention consumer demand and need for more advanced apps.

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