Heritage Provider Network, a Northridge, Calif.-based integrated physicians group, is teaming with University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and Open mHealth, a non-profit startup aimed at creating open software architecture for mobile health (mHealth) applications, for a contest that will encourage teams to create mHealth applications. The apps will have to use Open’s mHealth architecture and will be judged by a panel of health IT leaders which include Aneesh Chopra, former Chief Technology Officer of the United States.

"Currently, there are thousands of mobile apps and web applications for a variety of medical conditions but none that work together cohesively," continued Dr. Merkin. "For patients with multiple chronic conditions it is extremely difficult for them to monitor and track those conditions on separate applications. Allowing the tracking of their conditions in real time will lead to better health outcomes and lower cost of care,” Richard Merkin, M.D., president and CEO of Heritage, said in a statement.

 "In bringing mobility together with Open mHealth's open architecture, the contest is exciting on multiple smart healthcare IT fronts," stated Jim Davis, UCLA's, vice provost of information technology and chief academic technology officer. "It will produce mobile applications that address new models of meaningful, self-delivered healthcare; it will show how open architecture and mobility combine to open untapped heath care insights; and it will demonstrate how an open architecture facilitates a broad base of innovation."