Working toward "m-Africa": One mobile health leader has three tenets for a successful launch in a developing market: Price innovation, product reengineering and process innovation and realignment are the "three Ps" for creating a model where global technology can be "made or incubated in a developing country, as well as supporting and stimulating local innovations in and sustainable technology transfer to developing countries.” This concept, named m-Africa, was developed on the Barcelona-based Global Living Labs' platform. "The Sinseprod-Global Living Lab initiative focuses on how to develop health service around m-health technology," according this report in Telecoms.com More

Survey says Health IT budget increases: Research firm StatCom surveyed 440 healthcare executives and determined that a majority expect to increase their health IT spending in 2010: "It is good news that, even in the midst of a challenging economic environment, most hospitals plan to increase IT budgets in 2010," StatCom President Karl Straub stated in a company press release. "In an era where healthcare facilities are closely monitoring their expenditures, an increase in IT budgets, if focused on solutions that can deliver improved patient throughput and productivity will have a positive impact on the healthcare industry." More

AT&T has approved 370 M2M devices: To date AT&T has certified more than 370 different wireless machine-to-machine devices to run on its networks. These include: wireless consumer electronics devices as well as emerging devices, like rugged handsets/laptops, healthcare tracking tools, meter-reading, vending machine, and home detention devices. More

Ireland-based Shimmer attains CE mark: Shimmer Research's Shimmer wireless sensor platform has secured a CE mark, meaning it has passed EU consumer health and safety requirements for medical equipment and is now allowed to be marketed through EU countries. The CE certification also includes the company's ECG, EMG, and Motion capture Products, according to Shimmer. More (PDF)

It's a series of tubes: Despite this age of extreme Internet-connectivity, Stanford Hospital uses a pneumatic tube system for physically moving samples around. More