$163M for telehealth in 2011: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has proposed an increase to its home telehealth budget program: For 2009 it was $72 million and the agency wants to bump it up to $163 million for 2011, according to a reportin Federal Computer Week. More

Startup offers alcohol tracker device: VentureBeat reports on startup, Alcosystems, which was on display at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona last week: Alcosystems uses mobile technology to track blood alcohol levels. The company's offering consists of an alcometer, which is a small breathalyser unit connected to the mobile device using Bluetooth, a mobile phone application and a web site that users can visit to keep track of readings. More

Only 1,000 health apps for iPhone? Healthcare IT News is running a report that states: "The iPhone currently has more than 1,000 medical apps aimed at both patients and physicians to better manage health and care." Quick check of the iPhone app store shows more than 5,000 apps present in the Medical, Health & Fitness categories. Perhaps the quiet caveat is that there are only 1,000 apps for better managing health and care? Sounds low to us. More

IBM interns use SMS for global health: This is a bit old -- from December -- but interesting piece from Fast Company on IBM's interns using text messages "to save the world." More