Today at Health Datapalooza IV, we’re happy to announce that the winner of the $100,000 Challenge is Mood Rhythm.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Mood Rhythm is a mobile application (that runs on iOS and Android) that helps patients with bipolar disorder better monitor and analyze their daily rhythms and stay in balance.

Launched in January of this year, the Heritage Open mHealth Challenge encouraged the use of the Open mHealth architecture to overcome limitations that typically arise when dissimilar mobile health applications cannot communicate with one another. Applications conforming to the open architecture increase the diversity and utility of personalized health information available to improve chronic disease management, both through better patient self-monitoring and better clinical decision-making.

Teams were required to submit a demo of their application, along with video footage of the app in action. To ensure that applications would be developed with the end user in mind, each team entering the challenge had to include at least one member with clinical expertise and at least one participating user serving as a patient or a patient surrogate. Teams were also encouraged to include development, design, and data analysis experts.

“The Challenge was a great opportunity to encourage the development of shared platforms and the integration of different tools. These are critical steps if we’re going to realize the potential of mobile health technologies to improve health. Among several promising applications, Mood Rhythm stood out because of its elegant approach to collecting data in a way that can truly improve [the] ability of patients and their doctors to make better decisions about treating bipolar disorder,” said Dr. Brian Quinn, team director of the Pioneer Portfolio and one of the Challenge judges.

Mood Rhythm takes advantage of smartphones to track a patient’s daily routine and provides feedback to help patients maintain a regular daily rhythm while incorporating this information into clinical decision making. The application also uses sensors in the phone to track sleep and social activity patterns, providing more information for both patients and clinicians. The team is contributing a routine, sleep, and sensing module to Open mHealth.

“Rhythms guide our lives,” said Dr. Tanzeem Choudhury, team member and Professor of Information Science at Cornell University. “Our biological clocks tell us when we need to sleep, eat and wake.  When these rhythms are interrupted or obstructed, it can be difficult for our bodies to get what they need to stay healthy and balanced.”

When asked what the impact of Mood Rhythm might have on the community, Choudhury said, “It is one of the greatest challenges in healthcare to develop cutting edge technology that not only meets clinical needs but that can be incorporated with ease into patients’ lives. The combination of automatic sensing and self-tracking aims to provide long-term low-maintenance support for people with bipolar disorder.  The clinicians and patients who have used MoodRhythm to date have found it to be an enormously valuable tool for monitoring social rhythms and mood and for seeing the relationship between the two. We feel this is due in large part to a balanced collaboration with patients and clinicians acting as co-designers. The ongoing and close involvement of this community will be essential—having their voices steering the future development of MoodRhythm.”

Along with Mood Rhythm, four Challenge finalists were selected. ACEScreening provides hearing screening technology for smartphones and other devices. IMPACT strives to improve physical function, pain, and mobility in older obese adults with hip and/or knee arthritis. Psychologist in a Pocket supports the treatment of psychological disorders. Spiro Sano is an infrastructure for managing multiple respiratory disease states, such as asthma and COPD and for supporting beneficial behavioral changes such as smoking cessation and physical activity.

Common features of submitted projects included the ability to record information in real time instead of having to rely on memory at the end of the day, control over when and how much information is provided to the doctor, and using sensing tools such as global position systems and accelerometers to track social activity and other behaviors.

The judging panel for the challenge included Deborah Estrin, Computer Science Professor and Co-Founder of Open mHealth; Dr. Richard Merkin, CEO and Founder of the Heritage Provider Network; Dr. David Feinberg, President of the UCLA Health System; former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; Dr. Mark Smith, President and CEO of California HealthCare Foundation; Anne Wojcicki, Co-Founder of 23andMe; Dr. Mark McClellan, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans; and Brian Quinn, Team Director of Pioneer Portfolio.

The post We Have A Winner! appeared first on Open mHealth.

Today, Open mHealth is proud to be leading the anchor panel at the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA) Convergence Summit 2013. Together with John Mattison (CMIO Kaiser Permanente, SCAL), Chuck Parker (Executive Director, Continua Health Alliance), Kabir Kasargod (Director, Qualcomm Life) and Maneesh Goyal (VP, WellTok), we will discuss why an open architecture is critical to going beyond ‘connected health’, which while connected may still be fragmented. Breaking down barriers to integration will allow mHealth solutions to be more effective by being adaptive and flexible to meet the full breadth of patients’ changing needs.

We are even more excited to announce the Open mHealth ‘Catalyst’ initiative, with the support of WLSA. The Catalyst initiative represents our partners’ commitments to Open mHealth. These partners — some of whom are represented by our WLSA panelists — recognize the need to be “open” and are leading the way in building out their products and services using Open mHealth. Their leadership and commitment will support the Open mHealth ecosystem, further build out the Open mHealth architecture, and make it easier for more partners to come onboard.

A selection of these commitments include:

360’ Data for Diabetes: Ginger.io, Entra and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego are launching a pilot using the Open mHealth architecture to integrate data into Kaiser Permanente’s Complete Care initiative for Type 2 diabetes, with a focus on the mental health risks associated with the condition. This pilot will be integrating behavioral analysis from Ginger.io’s app as well as glucose and weight data from the Entra MyGlucoHealth system via Qualcomm Life’s 2Net platform.

“We have a very talented and dedicated group of innovative clinicians who are working with multiple vendors, all in a single pilot using the Open mHealth architecture. While individual apps alone can provide modest value, it is the coordination of sensing technologies, analytics, behavioral economics, and clinical workflows which constitute the critical opportunity to create the “behavioral symphony for wellness” necessary to effectively and persistently modify behaviors to improve the health of a population.” - John Mattison of Kaiser Permanente.

A ‘nutritious’ data exchange: WellTok is helping health plans and other population managers engage their members and improve health outcomes through social media technology. They are committing to pulling in at least two new data streams via Open mHealth API calls, and working with at least one data provider to implement the Open mHealth API. FoodCare will, as part of their core development strategy, be making highly advanced and personalized nutrition guidance for individuals with nutrition-related chronic diseases available to the Open mHealth ecosystem later this summer. Together, WellTok and FoodCare will be exploring data exchange around nutrition advice for patients and consumers through Open mHealth.

Geo for health: Calit2‘s Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego will implement Open mHealth for ‘DELPHI’– a research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) — to explore the intersection of geolocation and health, specifically for asthma and diabetes

Know yourself: TicTrac will be using Open mHealth APIs to integrate data streams from various 3rd parties including Entra, Ginger.io, and Qualcomm, to provide users of their Lifestyle Design platform with ‘personal analytics’ tools to gain a better understanding of themselves.

And more: In addition to being part of the panel, Qualcomm Life is continuing to promote and support the easy accessibility of the 2Net API through Open mHealth. Additionally, the Continua Health Alliance will collaborate with Open mHealth to identify opportunities for coordination with the Open mHealth specification relevant to the Alliance’s technology framework to facilitate an interoperable ecosystem of end-to-end, plug-and-play services, devices and systems for personal connected health.

“Open technologies and the sharing of knowledge enhance the WLSA mission of empowering consumer health and accelerating the adoption of innovative approaches, and we are pleased to offer ongoing support for the Open mHealth Catalyst initiative,”
Rob McCray, CEO of WLSA.

Intrigued? We’re opening up the invitation for everyone building mHealth applications and solutions to ‘go Open mHealth’! To join the Catalyst initiative, submit your Open mHealth goals here.

The post Kaiser Permanente, Qualcomm Life, WellTok and more support Open mHealth to catalyze an open mobile health ecosystem appeared first on Open mHealth.

Problem

Joe is a 34-year old Army veteran who’s been diagnosed with PTSD. He served in Afghanistan ’06-’07, in addition to a previous deployment in Asia. He’s in the reserves and now takes:

• Paxil for depression/PTSD
• Klonipin for anxiety
• Tylenol #3 for his related knee injury

Because Joe uses avoidance coping mechanisms to balance his life, work and family, he works with Dr. Hoffman to help track his progress so he can better manage his life.

Approach

Through an integrated set of applications, Open mHealth partnered with Joe and Dr. Hoffman to use the open mHealth architecture to make it easier manage Joe’s PTSD symptoms.

Open mHealth partnered with the following solutions:

• PTSD Coach/PTSD Explorer 
• MindMyMeds, Kaiser Permanente
• Mood Map, Intel
• Ginger.io
• Ohmage (mood)

Solution

Using the Open mHealth architecture, the above devices were uploaded and integrated via Ohmage—an open mHealth compliant, cloud-based data storage app. Integrated data are then pulled from Ohmage into a data visualization.

Through an integrated PTSD solution, using the Open mHealth architecture, Joe and Dr. Hoffman were able to increase insights about Joe’s condition, improve safety and provide the evidence needed whenever Joe felt “stuck”.

For a detailed look into how Open mHealth was used to help with Joe’s PTSD, check out this case study.

The post Open mHealth Case Study: PTSD appeared first on Open mHealth.

Problem

Type 1 diabetics are continuously self monitoring. Between tracking blood glucose level and insulin, they also have to keep an eye on how much they eat and how much activity their getting. While there’s an app to track blood glucose levels and an app to track activity, there isn’t a simple way to integrate these various data streams together to help tell the patient story.

Approach

For the 2012 mHealth Summit, Open mHealth partnered with Type 1 diabetic Alex Freeman (a 24 year old pediatric RN) and her doctor Dr. Saleh Adi (Co-founder of Green Dot Diabetes.org) to use the open mHealth architecture to make it easier for a patient and clinician to manage a Type 1 diabtes.

We partnered with:

• Entra Health Systems
• A&D Scale
• Qualcomm Life’s 2Net Hub
• Bodymedia
• Runkeeper
• PAM (Photographic Affect Meter)
• Ohmage
• GreenDot Diabetes

Solution

Using the Open mHealth architecture, the above devices were uploaded and integrated via Ohmage—an open mHealth compliant, cloud-based data storage app. Integrated data are then pulled from Ohmage into two visualization tools:

• My Comparisons – a mobile tool for data comparison
• ‘blip’ – a web application built by GreenDot Diabetes

Through an integrated view of Alex’s condition, both Alex and Dr. Adi are able to improve upon self-learning/management, increased accountability, improved sensitivity to hypoglycemic symptoms and increase Alex’s sense of safety.

For a detailed look into how Open mHealth helped Alex and Dr. Adi manage her diabetes check out our case study.

The post Open mHealth Case Study: Diabetes appeared first on Open mHealth.

Well, here are a couple of starter projects to get the creative juices flowing

Starter Project 1

• Clinical domain: Diabetes management.
• Idea: Improve medication, diet adherence and overall well-being.
• How: A web-based dashboard that tracks blood glucose, medications taken, activity, diet, mood.
• Applications and Devices used: Wireless glucose meter, FitBit, carb counter, The Eatery, Ginger.io, Mood Map

Example Vignette

• Health Care Professional: Joe, an RN/CHW who works with diabetics on disease management.
• Patient: Irina, a 65 yo insulin-dependent diabetic with worsening A1C, increasing BMI.
• Story: Joe talking with Irina reviews dashboard and sees consistent correlation of evening snacking, missing night-time insulin, and early morning hyperglycemia. He sees that Irina becomes lonely in the evening based on her mood tracker reports, and works with her to get involved in evening social activities. Joe makes note to text Irina in the evening about mood/diet, and to let her clinician know to address possible depression.

Starter Project 2

• Clinical domain: Crohn’s disease.
• Idea: Improve medication/diet adherence and look closely at symptom triggers – Food? Treatments? Mood?
• How: Dashboard tracking abdominal pain, fatigue, hours slept, number of bowel movements, weight, mood, activity, med adherence, new treatments, diet.
• Apps/Devices Used: Ginger.IO, Fitbit, My IBD, GI Monitor, Eatery.

Example Vignette

• Health Care Professional: Eva, GI doc who wants to be more systematic about tracking her patients’ wellbeing and response to diet changes and experimental treatments.
• Patient: Gregory, 26yo man with Crohn’s, Major Depressive Disorder, frequent complaints of abdominal pain.
• Story: At regular checkup, Gregory opens up Crohnology.MD, which pulls information from Ginger.IO and Fitbit, and reviews information with Eva. Eva, who sees that there has been significantly more abdominal pain (but no changes in mood, stress, or activity) since starting a new probiotic regimen, decides to discontinue the new treatment.

The post Getting Started with the Heritage Open mHealth Challenge and Office Hours appeared first on Open mHealth.

We’re honored to be partnering with the Heritage Provider Network and UCLA to allow patients and clinicians to combine existing and emerging applications and devices to create integrated, personalized health solutions that enable improved disease management and better health outcomes—all using the Open mHealth architecture!

Check it out:  heritagechallenge.openmhealth.org

If after you’ve checked out the site and think you or someone you know would be a great fit to submit a project idea, please forward along. All are welcome.

And of course if you could share the challenge with your networks, that’d be greatly appreciated.

Best of luck!

The post Heritage Open mHealth Challenge ($100K Prize) appeared first on Open mHealth.

Thank you for your support throughout this last year. Since September 2011, together we’ve grown the idea of an open mHealth architecture into something that is possible. We’re honored to have worked with a number of forward thinking organizations and people. Let’s also not forget our funder, the RWJF Pioneer Portfolio and advisory board for their continued support of our movement to make mHealth applications more effective.

We’re even more excited about the year to come. From Open mHealth, have a happy and healthy new year and we can’t wait to share with you all of our exciting developments in 2013.

-Team Open mHealth

The post Happy Holidays from Open mHealth appeared first on Open mHealth.

If you’re going to the Summit don’t miss out on:

• Our lightning talks at Booth #216 (see schedule for Monday and Tuesday)
• Co-Founder, Deborah Estrin’s panel on interoperability and standards on 12/3
• The Open mHealth special session where our technical partners and users Alex and Brian will share their experience about building to the open mHealth architecture, 12/4

Not going to the Summit? Come hang out with us!

• Sunday, 12/2 at Marvin at 8:30pm
• Monday, 12/3 at Eighteen Street Lounge at 9pm
• Tuesday, 12/4 at Room 11 at 9pm

It goes without saying we want to thank our sponsors the McKesson Foundation, Vodafone Americas Foundation, RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio and Rock Health.

The post Come hang out with Open mHealth during the 2012 mHealth Summit appeared first on Open mHealth.

We want to share the names of the organizations and people who’ve helped us along the way:

• Alex Freeman, a pediatric nurse living with Type 1 diabetes
• Brian Venerick, a US Army veteran diagnosed with PTSD
• Julia Hoffman from PTSD Coach
• Rich Strobridge from Entra Health System
• Kabir Kasargod from Qualcomm Life
• Jason Jacobs and Jake Cacciapaglia from Runkeeper
• Karan Singh and Anmol Madan from Ginger.io (congrats on the last round of funding)
• John Mattison from Kaiser Permanente and Veloxicom for creating MindMyMeds
• Bodymedia
• A&D
• JP Pollack from Cornell University for creating PAM
• Marc Schwartz for your professional design and development work at IdeaSphere
• John Jenkins and Cameron Ketcham from the Ohmage team
• Aaron Neinstein, Saleh Adi, and Steve McCann from Greendot Diabetes
• Ali Emami from Microsoft Health Vault
• Margie Morris from Intel Labs for creating MoodMap

We are grateful to be working with you.

The post Giving thanks to our technical partners appeared first on Open mHealth.

How do to enter:
To enter, follow @OpenmHealth on Twitter and answer our daily #OMHQUIZ question leading up to the Summit. Tweet us the correct answer to the daily question with the hashtag: #OMHQUIZ. We’ll track each answer and provide the answers by the end of the day. Winner of the Nexus 7 with be announced live on Twitter and at our special panel at the mHealth Summit on December 4th.

UPDATE – Enter the quiz live below!
The mHealth Summit Countdown Quiz

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