Australia's largest listed health information technology company has announced contracts totaling about £3 million ($5.4 million) for new hospital information systems at two NHS trusts in England. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust this month agreed to a six-year contract worth £2.04 million ($3.7 million), while NHS Wandsworth has signed a three-year £965,000 ($1.7 million) deal.

Interoperability and eHealth might at first glance appear as very different concepts - but the actual relationship between the two is extremely important. Microsoft recently hosted a session on interoperability and standards in eHealth as part of its overall interoperability series.

A simple new score which can predict the risk of patients suffering fractured bones due to osteoporosis has been developed using the QResearch database. The algorithm, QFractureScores, can be used by clinicians and patients and calculates an individual's percentage risk of an osteoporotic fracture over the next ten years, allowing early intervention to take place.

Siemens Healthcare presents "Healthcare Lighting", a concept for lighting design in medical facilities, aimed at creating a friendly and colorful environment instead of the common bland hospital atmosphere. Practical experience to date shows that many patients feel more comfortable and are more relaxed when the examination room or the diagnostic device is flooded with colored light and relaxing music is even played at the same time.

IBM (NYSE: IBM)announced that its Research scientists are working with the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute, in Bologna, Italy, to use information technology to better address treatment and research for rare genetic skeletal diseases.

In 2009, 85% of online Europeans in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain turn to the Internet and other technologies for health and prescription drug information, according to the latest Cybercitizen Health® Europe v9.0 study from healthcare and pharmaceutical market research company Manhattan Research. The collaboratively-edited Wikipedia again proves to be a top online health resource for consumers in all of the countries surveyed.

Mobile technology is helping those with acute diabetes in Germany manage their illness more effectively so that long-term complications associated with the illness can be treated earlier.