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One year ago we reviewed a new health app called Practice Fusion, a free, web-based EMR (electronic medical record) system for physicians. This week Practice Fusion announced an investment, amount not disclosed, by salesforce.com. They also announced the upcoming launch of their patient health record (PHR) application on Force.com, salesforce.com's cloud computing platform. With these announcements, now seems an appropriate time for a check-up of Practice Fusion. How is its own health and what are the implications of partnering with salesforce.com?

This weekend millions of North American children diligently completed their homework, did their chores and stayed on their best behavior in the hopes that they'd attend Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince in theaters. Meanwhile, half way around the world, thousands of children work for the magical protections of mosquito nets and running water. Their Voldemort is malaria. Between 1-3 million malaria deaths happen every year with the majority of the victims being young children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, thanks to the work of a Berkeley research team, help may be on its way.

DataDyne's EpiSurveyor program, funded by the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, has been implementing mobile technology to track and contain disease in developing nations since 2007.

In a recent and potentially devastating polio outbreak in Kenya, EpiSurveyor's new mobile platform was used to track virus carriers and immunize affected children. The campaign targeted around 2 million Kenyan children. Mobile tech will be used exclusively for new nationwide initiatives in children's healthcare, and the World Health Organization has made EpiSurveyor the standard for data collection in sub-Saharan Africa. Screenshots and video included below.

"There are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world, 305 million computers but only 11 million hospital beds," said Terry Kramer, strategy director at British operator Vodafone at the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona this week. That's why Vodafone, along with the United Nations and the Rockerfeller Foundation's mHealth Alliance have banded together to advance the use of mobile phones to better aid those in need of healthcare in the developing world.

IBM, Google Health and a consortium of medical device makers and other companies announced today that they have created a software platform that will allow medical data from at-home devices like glucose meters and blood pressure monitors to be sent automatically to Google Health or other Personal Health Records systems online. It's a broad reaching software platform that will bring data portability and medical records interoperability in direct conflict with a huge industry entrenched in siloed data.

If you think that "data portability" and standards for an open web hold a lot of promise to fuel innovation in social networking, just imagine what a secure, standards-based, data landscape could enable in health care.

Two years ago, HopeLab released Re-Mission, a shoot 'em up game with a difference in an attempt to help cancer afflicted teenagers stick to their medication. This past August, clinical evidence was published in the medical journal Pediatrics showing the game is a success.

HopeLab, a nonprofit organization founded by Pam Omidyar, was named one of Fast Company magazine's 2009 Social Enterprises of the Year this month for its efforts in improving the health and quality of life of young people with chronic illness.