Contests to help spur innovation in the mHealth application market is nothing new — we’ve seen countless apps emerge from such events around the world as the mobile healthcare industry continues to gain incredible momentum.

The latest event to produce such innovation took place just before the Health 2.0 Europe Conference in Berlin, in which Aetna sponsored a code-a-thon with EUR 10K worth of prizes.  Aetna invited the best developers, designers, health experts and health tech entrepreneurs to compete on the challenge of developing “innovative mobile apps to promote health and wellness across the globe.”

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Walgreens is continuing its aggressive mHealth push by launching yet another pilot program to allow customers to schedule appointment to its clinics directly from their smartphones.

The pilot program was launched at clinics in Denver and Chicago as a start, and to use the new scheduling service patients must first download the free iTriage app for iPhones and Android devices.  The partnership with iTriage is key, as it signifies how important this app has become in the mHealth space.  In its first three years since launch, for example, iTriage has seen more than 6 million downloads.

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It was announced today that Kony Solutions, makers of a multi-channel application development platform called KonyOne, has launched an updated version of its mHealth application targeted at healthcare payers.

The updated mobile app is targeted at payers looking to offer members end-to-end mobile solutions, in addition to putting secure health plan information at the patient’s fingertips, on any mobile device they want to use.  Kony’s multi-channel platform supports 99% of mobile devices in use today, including Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows, J2ME devices, HTML5, native or hybrid applications as well as older mobile web browsers.

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It’s been announced that Axial Exchange, a health IT startup that provides post-discharge mobile solutions, has acquired the mRemedy suite of mobile app products — developed in-house by the Mayo Clinic.

The mRemedy suite, and particularly its myTality patient-facing mobile healthcare application, help patients navigate a future hospital visit, as well as helps hospitals better market their services.  Axial will use the myTality suite as the patient-facing complement to Axial’s award-winning care transition products including Axial Patient and Axial Provider, which support transition of care from the hospital to home.  Canaan Partners, Axial’s lead venture capital investor, and Mayo Clinic both invested in Axial Exchange to complete the deal, according to a joint announcement.

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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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