2007 Interactive Media Award Winner for Healthcare

Healia Wins Outstanding Achievement Award for Health Search Website From Interactive Media Awards

BELLEVUE, WA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- May 03, 2007 -- Healia, a health vertical search engine for high quality and personalized health information, has won an Outstanding Achievement Award in the healthcare category from the 2007 Interactive Media Awards.

The honor, granted by the Interactive Media Council, recognizes Web sites that surpass the highest standards of excellence and that represent the Web's most professional and outstanding work. The judging criteria included design, usability, technical innovation, standards compliance, and content.

"We are honored to have our search engine recognized by the Interactive Media Awards," stated Tom Eng, CEO of Healia, Inc. "This award reflects Healia's passionate focus on building unique consumer health Internet technologies that have the highest levels of compelling design, usability, and innovation."

About Healia.com

Healia, Inc. (www.healia.com) is the creator of a proprietary, health-optimized search engine that uses patent-pending technology to generate high quality, highly targeted, and personalized results for consumers. The Healia search engine is available to partners for free in an advertising revenue share relationship or for a license fee to maintain an ad-free environment common to health organizations and employers. Its licensees include the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the nation's largest integrated health care system.

About the Interactive Media Awards

The Interactive Media Awards (www.interactivemediaawards.com) recognize the highest standards of excellence in Web site design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. Sponsored by the Interactive Media Council, Inc., a nonprofit organization of leading Web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other Web-related professionals, the competition seeks to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet.

Contact:

Tassie DeMoney
Healia, Inc.
12505 Bel-Red Rd., Suite 209
Bellevue, WA 98005
Phone: 425 646 6030
Email: media@healia.com
Website: www.healia.com


Source: Market Wire

Mobiles 'to help track diseases'

Tuesday, 17 October 2006, 11:23 GMT

The application can deliver information in remote locations

Mobile phone technology is being developed to help manage the spread of diseases such as HIV and bird flu.

The software is designed to allow field workers using handsets to send and receive data on disease outbreaks along with patient and drug information.

The project is a collaboration between technology firm Voxiva and the trade association for mobile operators, GSMA.

Trials of the relatively low-cost application are underway in Rwanda, Africa and in Indonesia.

When a disease is spreading rapidly, health authorities need information that is bang-up-to-date Rob Conway, GSMA

The program works by sending the data through the general packet radio service (GPRS) network, and if this is unavailable, it can divert to an SMS data channel, normally used for text messages.

It is programmed using java language, so can work across different handsets and operators.

This means a doctor working in the field can send information to a central database about how many people are affected by a disease, patient status, drug inventory levels and receive information such as alerts, treatment guidelines or lab test results.

Ben Soppitt, director of strategic initiatives, GSMA, said: "This will allow health officials to see real-time accurate data on the status of the healthcare system in their country so they can make informed decisions about where those resources are applied."

'Vital data'

GSMA and Voxiva said the technology will be particularly valuable for helping to track communicable diseases, such as HIV. A pilot to the system's ability to track bird flu is also taking place in Indonesia.

Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA, said: "The efforts of the international health community to control pandemics, by getting life-saving drugs to those in need, depend heavily on a comprehensive and accurate picture of what is happening on the ground.

"When a disease is spreading rapidly, health authorities need information that is bang-up-to-date. Mobile networks, which are now widespread in the developing world, are the best and most immediate way to get them that vital data."

The cost of rolling out the technology in Rwanda, including setting-up and implementation costs, is about $1m.

Source: BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6058162.stm

RELATED INTERNET LINKS

Voxiva

GSMA