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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has contracted with F4W, Inc. for its core communication systems. The systems will be placed at VA's twelve Emergency Management Strategic Healthcare Group (EMSHG) regional offices nationwide, providing VA with secure, resilient communications in the event of natural disasters and other emergencies.

The National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) on April 26 convened 80 representatives of consumer-facing organizations ranging from patient advocates to government agencies for the inaugural meeting of the Consumer Consortium on eHealth. The goal: To encourage individuals to become more engaged in health and healthcare throught the use of information technology.

The ability to transmit detailed images over long distances is fueling new telemedicine projects in Canada and China and making it possible for physicians to view images anywhere and consult regarding patients and treatments.

Smartphone apps are increasing in popularity and are being widely used in healthcare as health apps, but more research needs to be conducted on their efficacy as patient adherence tools, according to a survey by Consumer Health Information Corporation (CHIC).The survey was distributed to smartphone consumers at affiliated universities, businesses and posted on Facebook in April 2011. Survey results were collected from 395 respondents.

Health-focused social networks may prove to be a viable source for chronic disease surveillance, according to researchers at Children's Hospital Boston.Using a combination of Facebook-like tools and personally controlled health records, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have engaged members of an online diabetes social network as participants in public health surveillance, according to a study published April 27 in PLoS ONE by Elissa Weitzman, ScD, MSc, and Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP).