The San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability recently published a dataset in the form of an interactive map plotting housing affordability in San Francisco neighborhoods. The map is part of an effort to raise public awareness about the link between affordable housing and public health.

Doximity, a professional network for physicians, announced a new system of continuing medical education (CME) in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic. The digital platform gives physicians a flexible and social way to earn CME credits on Doximity’s social network.

VHA, a network of not-for-profit health care organizations, partnered with Phytel to help its members tackle population management. Phytel’s technology combined with VHA IMPERATIV, a suite of advisory services, will help hospitals establish value-based care delivery models.

The American Stroke Association, American Heart Association, and Ad Council launched Spot a Stroke F.A.S.T., an app that aims to help users identify when someone is having a stroke.

Informatics Corporation of America, a health information exchange platform, achieved full accreditation with the Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP) from DirectTrust.org and the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) for excellence in health data processing and transactions, and ensuring compliance with industry-established standards, HIPAA regulations and the Direct Project.

Hello Health, an EHR service provider, launched a patient-facing app called Portal Connect. This app allows patients to access and update their health data, and securely exchange information with their providers who use the Hello Health EHR system.

DoctorBase, a provider of mHealth-as-a-Service, grew its user base to 10K physicians, a growth of 104% within one year. DoctorBase’s PANDA software allows more than 4.1M patients to communicate with their health care providers through smartphones.

Online health community PatientsLikeMe invited medical researchers to take part in the first pilot run of its Open Research Exchange (ORE) platform. ORE will allow researchers to pilot, deploy, share, and validate new methods for measuring diseases among the PatientsLikeMe members.

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden found that a modified version of the dermatology consultation app, iDoc24, is comparably effective in identifying cancerous legions on skin as an in-person examination. Called the iDoc24 PRO, this app works with a dermoscope attachment on the phone to capture high resolution pictures.

Stanford engineers have developed a flexible, skin-like heart monitor that can be worn under an adhesive bandage on the wrist. The device functions as a pressure sensor and is sensitive enough to help doctors detect stiff arteries and cardiovascular problems.

AdhereTech won first prize and $50,000 at the Healthcare Innovation World Cup, an international diabetes innovation challenge. The wireless, smart pill bottles earned the top spot by demonstrating impact, innovation, feasibility and financial sustainability.

Ringadoc, a San Francisco startup that helps doctors manage patient phone calls, has raised an additional $700,000 in seed funding, which brings its total round of funding up to $1.9 million.

A tech accelerator called The Iron Yard in South Carolina launched its own digital health accelerator. Startups will receive $20,000 in seed funding and other benefits in exchange for 6 percent equity in their company. The demo day for the first class will be at Health 2.0’s fall conference at the end of September.

PathCentral, a pathology oriented cloud technology company, is a finalist in the Health and Medical Technologies category for the 2013 TechAmerica Foundation American Technology Awards (ATAs) for its web-based anatomic pathology laboratory information system (APLIS).

The U.S. House of Representatives approved $344M in preliminary spending for developing a joint EHR system between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense.

TigerText, a secure mobile messaging platform, and Airwatch, a mobile security and enterprise mobility management provider, partnered to offer a HIPAA compliant communication platform for hospitals and health care organizations. The solution is being implemented by Community Hospice of Texas.

According to a report released by the Institute of Health Technology Transformation(iHT2),  data analytics is crucial for population health management and the success of accountable care organizations. The report also featured critical findings and recommendations for using data to reduce cost and improve efficiency.

PingMD, an app facilitating communication between pediatricians and patients, raised $2.5M in new funding from angel investors, as reported by GigaOm. The company recently expanded the scope of this app to include patients from other disciplines as well as allow peer-to-peer communication.

Sorin Group announced that the FDA cleared SmartView, a remote monitoring application for implanted cardiac rhythm management devices. The technology allows physicians whose patients have a Paradym device, Sorin Group’s implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), to monitor them outside of the office.

Zephyr Technology, a wearable remote monitoring company, raised $2.4 million from undisclosed investors. Zephyr makes the BioHarness 3 for which the FDA granted 510(k) clearance in 2010.

Preventice announced the commercial launch of the BodyGuardian Remote Monitoring System. The device, a small sensor attached to the body via a peel-and-stick patch, received FDA 510(k) clearance in August 2012.

The White House unveiled policy requirements calling for all federal government agencies to make information resources easily accessible. Data liberation efforts are already underway and have long been a priority for the CMS and ONC.

TrialReach, a UK based clinical trial search platform, raised £2M in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Investments along with Amadeus Capital Partners, who previously invested in the company in 2011.

Hunt Psychiatric Innovations recently unveiled MedOptimizer ADD/ADHD, the first app in the planned series of psychiatric apps to convert patients’ experience with medicines into actionable data for doctors.

According to the Surescripts’ National Progress Report on E-Prescribing and Safe-Rx Rankings, in 2012, 69% of U.S. doctors used e-prescribing, 44% of all prescriptions dispensed were routed electronically, and 47% of patient visits resulted in electronically generated medication history requests.

MyPsych, a HIPAA compliant real-time monitoring and analysis tool, launched MyPsychTES.com. It streamlines patient-therapist communication, and connects practitioners with clients via the MyPsych smartphone applications.

Mana Health won The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Design Challenge for the Patient Portal for New Yorkers, followed by iHealthNY and MyHealthProfile. NYeC hosted a Lightning API Workshop on Day 1 of the Health:Refactored Conference.

Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW) joined the Oregon Health Network (OHN). The partnership allows for the free flow of health care data between KP and non-KP providers. OHN will facilitate this data flow, providing connectivity to the entire health care continuum statewide.

A new company, Maxwell Health, launched in March in 7 cities to help employers and employees make health insurance decisions from the first step of buying a policy through picking providers to becoming healthier.

The New York Digital Health Accelerator (NYDHA) announced the graduation of its inaugural class at its first annual Demo Day. The eight participants are developing technology solutions in care coordination, patient engagement, and analytics.

HealthSpot partnered with Nationwide Children’s Hospital to expand access to affordable health care for children via four HealthSpot Station units in and around Columbus, Ohio. The HealthSpot Station brings patients face-to-face, via high-definition videoconferencing, with medical professionals from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

A Toronto based pediatrician along with his team, developed a new children’s medication app called Snap’n'Dose. It allows users to take a picture of the drug identification number with their smartphone and calculate the correct dosage for that particular medication based on the child’s height & weight.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center adopted a care-coordination app called Cureatr across the enterprise. This cloud-based mobile app provides a HIPAA-compliant group text messaging system that aims at improving communication between team members coordinating care for patients with complex medical conditions.

Doctor Q&A startup HealthTap raised $24M in Series B funding. The round was led by Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures, who joins the company as an advisor. Other investors include Mayfield Fund and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

MTBC, an electronic health record (EHR), practice and revenue cycle management company, launched ChartScribe. It is a fully integrated transcription service that allows health care providers to avoid lost productivity when adopting an EHR as well as fulfill the requirements of Meaningful Use Stage 2.

Tennessee Oncology, a physician-owned oncology practice, adopted Navigating Cancer’s cloud-based Patient Engagement Portal that enables providers to securely connect patients to their personal health information and educational resources. Navigating Cancer presented on the Health 2.0 stage at the 2010 San Francisco Conference.

Honeywell HomMed unveiled a line of telehealth products and solutions at the 2013 American Telemedicine Association (ATA) Convention. The line up includes Genesis telehealth monitors, a software support for HomMed’s personal health devices called LifeStream Management Suite and a mobile Personal Emergency Response System (mPERS).

Fitbit Flex, a wrist-worn activity and sleep tracking device by Fitbit, is now commercially available. The product was announced earlier this year, and comes integrated with Bluetooth 4.0 and active minutes tracking system.

Telemedicine company Healthspot partnered with Netsmart, a management process solutions and EMR provider, to allow delivery of behavioral health services through Healthspot’s walk-in telehealth kiosks called HealthSpot Station. These kiosks are also being piloted at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

ClickCare, a HIPAA secure store-and-forward collaboration platform for providers, launched the iClickCare app for the iOs systems. The app enables the healthcare providers to exchange information using text, pictures, video, and PDFs, and creates archives of all cases for future reference.

Doximity, the largest online physician network, launched its new iPad app, bringing its HIPAA-secure communication platform for doctors to the tablet. Doximity also announced that it now has 160,000 physician users.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released the “Governance Framework for Trusted Electronic Health Information Exchange.” The voluntary guidance represents the ONC’s support of HIE governance in place of formal rules.

UC San Francisco opened a Center for Digital Health Innovation (CDHI) to pioneer the transformation of health care in the era of individualized precision medicine. The focus of the CDHI is developing new technologies, apps, and systems that, along with social media, will generate enormous new data sets.

AARP and LivePitch Media announced 10 startup finalists for the second annual AARP Health Innovation @50+ LivePitch. The showcase features startup companies innovating in the “50 and over” health technology space.

RunKeeper is now integrated with the Pebble smart watch. On the Pebble, RunKeeper will display pace, speed, and distance travelled and offer workout start and stop features. The partnership helps RunKeeper compete with wearables, allowing them to focus on their app, and leave hardware to specialized partners.

Vivify Health, Inc., formerly Intuitive Health, Inc., received funding from Ascension Health Ventures and Heritage Group. The funding amount was not disclosed, but proceeds will accelerate the delivery of Vivify’s cloud-based Remote Care Management platform.

A study from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that daily SMS text messages asking pediatric asthma patients about their condition can lead to improved health outcomes. Researchers found that sending at least one text message a day improved clinical outcomes.

Proteus Digital Health announced that it raised $62.5 million in its latest round of funding. Proteus is developing an intelligent medicine system called Raisin, which includes sensor-enabled pills, a biometric sensor patch, and companion apps.

Independence Blue Cross, New York University, and NYU Langone Medical Center established a collaboration to use big data to detect, prevent, and predict diabetes. Researchers will create algorithms using machine learning to be applied to medical and pharmacy claims data to try to determine which patients have either undiagnosed or pre-diabetes.

WellnessFX, a cloud based consumer health platform, launched eCheckup, a web-based blood testing platform. The results are available within 48 hours, and the consumers have direct access to their health data via a WellnessFX dashboard.

According to Manhattan Research’s annual study of physicians’ technology adoption and behavior, Epocrates is the most popular medical application on both smartphones and tablet devices among U.S. physician app users.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) partnered with Archimedes Inc., a health care modeling company, to create a web based interface called the Archimedes Healthcare Simulator (ARCHeS). This platform will allow the HHS agencies to evaluate health spending, treatment, and effectiveness using big data.

Share Practice, a mobile based collaborative clinical reference platform debuted earlier this week. The app allows doctors to exchange clinical information, publish findings, get feedback from the community, review conventional therapies and incorporate new, and integrative medicines into the collective knowledge-base.

DocuTap, makers of EHR and Practice Management software, raised $11.9M in Series B funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), and also included DocuTAP’s existing financial partner, Bluff Point Associates (BPA).

Montana based Frontier Medicine Better Health Partnership (FMBHP) partnered with Vree Health, a post-discharge technology service provider, to improve care transitions and reduce hospital readmission rates for patients in rural areas. The collaboration will develop improved processes for transitioning patients from hospital to home within at least 10 Montana communities.

M*Modal, a provider of clinical documentation and speech understanding solutions, announced an agreement with 3M Health Information Systems enabling the M*Modal clinical documentation platform to work in conjunction with the 3M 360 Encompass System. The partnership allows 3M’s computer-assisted coding (CAC), clinical documentation improvement (CDI), quality metrics, and analytics tools to more quickly access documents generated by M*Modal’s speech recognition engine.

Switftkey, the intuitive typing interface for smartphones, announced that it is launching an iPad typing app aimed at the health care market. UK-based Swiftkey claims use of its keyboard can halve the time it takes for clinicians to make notes on patients. The artificially intelligent keyboard incorporates medical terminology and predicts what you are going to type based on what you start to type and what it already knows about your writing. It both corrects words and suggests the next word.

Physicians Interactive CEO, Donato Tramuto will receive the H.I.T. Men & Women Award at HIMSS 2013. The award recognizes Tramuto’s contribution to advancement of health care technology between life science companies and health care professionals. Physicians Interactive provides resource for health care information, medication samples and mobile decision support tools to medical professionals.

CVS will pay $650,000 to fund a public education campaign for consumers to double-check their prescriptions after the wrong medications found their way into bottles at five of its pharmacies last year. On 15 occasions over two months, pill bottles of children’s chewable fluoride also included tamoxifen, a breast cancer treatment drug. Consumers will see posters and pamphlets at CVS pharmacies, while the CVS website will provide color images of medications and offer a personalized prescription profile of each customer.

Happtique, makers of the mRx Mobile Platform that allows providers to prescribe mobile health apps, announced the publication of the final standards it will use to certify apps under the Happtique Health App Certification Program (HACP). The HACP will help health care providers and consumers easily identify medical, health, and fitness apps that deliver credible content, contain safeguards for user data, and function as described. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), CGFNS International, and Intertek will serve as HACP Partners responsible for the evaluation of health apps against the Certification Standards.

According to a study by the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association, users of self monitoring apps lose more weight as opposed tradional tracking methods. This study showed increased adherence among users and points to potential benefits of mobile monitoring methods. A similar study by Archives of Internal Medicine reported that weight loss treatments combined with mobile technology are more affective than same treatment without mobile support.

100Plus, a startup using data analytics and game mechanics for healthy behavioral changes, was acquired by Practice Fusion, a free EHR provider. Practice Fusion’s founder, Ryan Howard, was a part of the group of venture capitalists who invested $1.2 million in 100Plus in 2011.

Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) and Informatics Corporation of America (ICA), a health information exchange platform, launched a pilot for sharing immunization data with Kansas State Immunization Registry (KSWebIZ), a web-based statewide immunization registry for consolidation of immunization information for all Kansas residents. The pilot electronically sends immunizations from the health care facility to KSWebIZ and will soon allow health care providers to search and retrieve patient immunization information.

NewCrop, an EHR vendor is joining Surescripts‘ e-prescription network that allows clinical information exchange between physicians and care providers. The collaboration will enable NewCrop users to exchange vital clinical information securely with their peers. Other partners of Surecripts include Epic, NextGen and GE Healthcare.

Health Catalyst, a health care data warehouse, increased its Series B funding by $8 million. This extension was sponsored by Kaiser Permanente Ventures and CHV Capital, a venture capital fund by Indiana’s largest health care system, bringing their total funding to $41 million. The previous round of $33 million was concluded in December 2012.

MedSnap released an iPhone app for medication recognition. The app allows providers to take a photo of a patient’s medications, which the app then analyzes to display the name and strength of each drug along with drug-drug interactions, drug-disease contraindications, and allergies based on the patient’s medical records. Eventually, the app will include features like medication reminders and caregiver monitoring.

Health care speech recognition technology vendor MModal partnered with Intermountain Healthcare to prototype and develop a mobile app for speech-enabled computerized physician order entry (CPOE). Spoken orders are sent to an MModal server in the cloud where they are translated into text. Given the complexity of speech recognition, the app is intended mainly for use with common ailments and has “human check” built in.

Dell launched a business-ready tablet with enhanced security configurations, aimed at highly regulated industries such as government agencies, financial institutions and health care organizations. The tablet is designed to address management and security challenges faced by health care organizations deploying tablets.

Aker Eye/Vision Center, Florida, saw improved efficiency and patient flow by using Versus Technology’s clinic patient flow system. This Real Time Locating System (RTLS) uses staff and patient badges to communicate with wireless sensors installed in patient care area, and tracks the stages of every patient visit. Aker is the nation’s second optometry practice to adopt this technology.

A report released by Black Book Rankings found that as many as 17% of medical practices could be switching EHR vendors by the end of the year. Most providers indicated that EHR systems simply did not live up to expectations, and were lacking in desired features, including sophisticated interfaces with other practice programs, complex connectivity and networking schemes, pacing with accountable care progress and the rapid EHR adoption of mobile devices.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced it will deploy real-time locating system (RTLS) technology at 152 of its medical centers throughout the U.S. with a goal of improving operational efficiency. Intelligent InSites, the subcontractor providing the software, will begin by tagging medical equipment and supplies; the tags will automatically collect data that will enable VA officials to view analytics regarding operational efficiency. The VA eventually plans to expand monitoring into clinical applications.

Online fitness startup Wello launched Group Workouts where three to five users can work out together. This plan costs less than regular one-on-one sessions, and allows users to communicate among eachother. Wello recently raised $1 million in seed funding.

Humetrix, a San Diego-based software company, released a cross-platform version of its iBlueButton app that allows patients and physicians to exchange medical information at the point of care via smartphones and tablets. Humetrix won the federal government’s Blue Button mashup innovation challenge in 2012.

EClinicalWorks, a developer of electronic health records and practice management systems, said it will launch free iPhone and Android apps for patients by the end of the month. The company will invest $25 million over the next year to create patient engagement tools under its business unit called Health & Online Wellness.

Jawbone, creator of the Up fitness monitor, acquired Massive Health, which is best known for its mobile app the Eatery. The Massive Health website said the deal brings together Jawbone’s product team, and Massive Health’s deep software knowledge.

A recent KLAS report found that best of breed emergency department information systems (EDISs) scored 59% higher than enterprise systems when it came to physician satisfaction. Physicians said that best of breed EDISs were better in terms of decision support, overall usability, and documentation accuracy.

Sotera Wireless raised $14.8 million from investors Safeguard Scientifics, Delphi Ventures, West Health Investment Fund, and others. Sotera created ViSi Mobile, a wireless patient monitoring system that uses body censors to continuously monitor vital signs.

WellPoint and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have been working with IBM for the past year to train Watson in oncology. The partners recently discussed Watson’s progress saying that the computer so far has ingested more than 600,000 pieces of medical evidence and two million pages of text from oncology research medical journals and clinical trials.

HIT company Diversinet has been issued two mobile security patents: one by the United States Patent Trademark Office and the second by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. These expand Diversinet’s intellectual property portfolio to 22 granted patents.

NuMedii presented at StartX demo day in Palo Alto, CA last week. StartX is Stanford University’s student accelerator program. NuMedii discovers new drugs by translating mass amounts of data and finding therapies with a high probability of therapeutic success.

PatientsLikeMe partnered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Epilepsy Centers of Excellence (ECoE) and biopharmaceutical company UCB to study factors that improve epileptic veterans’ health. Approximately 66,000 veterans who visit VA medical centers are diagnosed with seizures or epilepsy each year, according to the ECoE.

A recent Epocrates survey found that 60% percent of physicians who use the Epocrates drug reference app said that they avoided at least one adverse drug error per week. The app features an Interaction Checker that lets physicians enter up to 30 prescription, over-the-counter, and alternative medicines to check for potential interactions.

Health care marketing agency HealthEd won first place in the government-sponsored Health Design Challenge for its re-design of patient lab summaries. The display gives patients a health score based on physical, emotional, and lifestyle factors.

Cognichoice launched a campaign on crowdfunding site Health Tech Hatch. Cognichoice is an app focused on behavior change in patients with health issues like type 2 diabetes, obesity and drug addiction. The app is currently being tested in a pilot study for overweight and obese pediatric patients.

Stanford University associate professor Atul Butte, MD and his colleagues took the big data approach to achieve their latest diabetes findings. The researchers looked at massive amounts of genetic data. Their results suggest that low blood levels of beta-carotene are significantly associated with an increased risk for type 2 diabetes.

Esri, which focuses on geographic information technology, is mapping flu surveillance reports from the CDC to flu mentions on social media, including YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. You can view the real-time map here.

Syapse, developer of human genome and clinical data processing software, raised a Series A round of venture capital, led by The Social+Capital Partnership. Syapse’s software is currently involved in the processing of more than 3,000 patient genomes.