By DON CASEY

The winner of the West Wireless Health Institute’s $10,000 Health 2.0 developer challenge integrates consumer devices with wireless capabilities – like Nintendo’s popular Wii balance board – and open source platforms to help people share real-time health data securely over their social networks. Applied personally, this just might help users achieve their health and fitness goals, keeping them motivated and engaged over the long haul.

The winner, announced at Health 2.0, was Alan Viars of Videntity. Viars, who lives in Baltimore, told WWHI that he designed a platform “that would allow users to customize, personalize and easily manage their personal health data in a fun, interactive way.”

With his solution, consumers could choose how they want to engage, whether it is through a medical device, a mobile phone, or a social network. Being able to manage weight, activity level, and blood pressure from anywhere, and then share that data across social platforms, motivates people to modify their behavior through networks that they are already using.

For WWHI, Viars’ solution embodied its mission – to lower health care costs by accelerating the availability of wireless health solutions. WWHI’s Health 2.0 challenge called on developers to design a low-cost, secure mechanism for incorporating real-time health data derived from wireless sensors into an established social network interface.

To learn more about the Institute and its challenge, visit http://www.westwirelesshealth.org/. 

Don Casey is CEO of West Wireless Health Institute.