At HIMSS13 this week, Kaiser Permanente had its suite of smartphone apps on display at its booth on the exhibit hall show floor. In the mix was an app called Hopp2IT, which turned out to be a white labeled version of an app developed by 100Plus. 100Plus, of course, was just acquired by its partner Practice Fusion. The app is not publicly available -- it is being used in an internal pilot by Kaiser Permanente IT's thousands of employees.

Jason Cheng, a Director in Technology Strategy & Planning at Kaiser Permanente, told MobiHealthNews in an email that KP came to work with 100Plus through a "combination of strategy, good luck, and a good deal of hard work," Cheng wrote. "As we build out our own digital health ecosystem, one of our strategies is to support and work with startups in the digital health space. There are so many great ideas and innovations coming out of this space."

Cheng said that while KP is supporting digital health startups through Rock Health, it also wants to work with them directly. Cheng said he sought out 100Plus co-founder Chris Hogg after reading about his startup's launch.

"What I really liked about their app is that it is in line with Kaiser Permanente's focus on Total Health, encouraging little, repeatable healthy activities -- not just exercising -- enabled through mobile and social," Cheng wrote. "I would also mention that I would not have pushed this forward without having a lot of trust in our startup partner."

KP worked with 100Plus to develop a white-labeled version of the 100Plus app to serve as the foundation of the 2013 CIO Health Challenge that Kaiser Permanente's CIO Philip Fasano spearheads for employees of KP each year.

"We branded the app 'Hopp2IT' [which is a nod to 100Plus' concept of healthy opportunities or 'hopps'] and made an entire internal marketing campaign around it," Cheng said. "This has enabled us to bring a cool, innovative app to our employees more quickly than developing one on our own."

Brian Gardner, Kaiser Permanente's Executive Director of its Mobility Center of Excellence, told MobiHealthNews during an interview at HIMSS that, like the original 100Plus app, Hopp2IT includes pre-loaded ideas for simple, healthy things to do as well as the option to create your own. KP employees get points for eating healthier lunches, doing pushups, taking a walk around the lake that's nearby the office, and pretty much whatever else they can come up with. Gardner said the app assigns custom "Hopps" a point score via an algorithm. Custom Hopps are visible to other users who can choose to adopt them as their own and Hopps can be voted up by the community of users, too.

One of the key features of Hopp2IT are images of the Hopps that users take to "capture the essence" of the activity. Gardner was really impressed by one of the app's main screens that displays a gallery of these photos to help inspire people to discover a new Hopp. He said the app also helps him and his colleagues better understand what is important to their team members.

Gardner said he currently has about 265 points. If the total number of points accumulated by Kaiser Permanente employees tops 250,000 in a few months time, Gardner said KP will make a donation to (an as yet undecided) charity.

In addition to the Hopp2IT app, Kaiser Permanente was showing off a newly redesigned version of its Every Body Walk! app for Android and iOS. KP also noted that its main app, KP Mobile -- which helps KP members locate facilities, make appointments, access records, refill prescriptions and more -- now has more than 390,000 downloads. KP Locator was the company's first iPhone app -- it launched in mid-2011.

MobiHealthNews coverage of the HIMSS13 event in New Orleans is sponsored by AirStrip Technologies.