We're trying to avoid the myriad "mobile healthcare" stories involving clinics in vans since this newsletter is part of the FierceHealthIT family, but here's one with a clear IT focus: Kaiser Permanente is sending a completely "wired" women's health semitrailer to Hawaii to serve the very rural population of the Big Island.

"We have an entire network on wheels," Lisa Victor, the IT service delivery manager for Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, tells CNET. The 2,000-square-foot rolling clinic is equipped with the same Epic Systems electronic health record that Kaiser is deploying to all its fixed locations, and also features a digital mammography unit and wireless telemedicine capabilities to link the unit to specialists on Oahu.

Services will be available at no charge to Kaiser members and to uninsured women who meet certain federal poverty guidelines. The digital mobile clinic will begin seeing patients July 21.

To learn more about this advanced mobile clinic:
- check out this CNET story
- read Kaiser's press release

At the heart of the new, 10-story North Tower at Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, FL, is an 802.11n wireless LAN designed to support a fleet of workstations-on-wheels and roaming voice-data devices, TMCnet.com reports. The 500,000-square-foot tower opens today, stuffed with wireless technology from Meru Networks.

Rather than taking a conventional "micro-cell" approach to building a WLAN, the Sunnyvale, CA-based company set up a single "virtual cell" to provide seamless coverage and reduce latency delays. The infrastructure is built to support a Meditech EMR, Motion C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant tablet computers for clinical data entry, Siemens VoIP phones and a LifeLinks remote video interpreting service.

For more on the technology behind the new tower:
- check out the TMCnet.com story

Here's one that's straight out of James Bond's gadgetry collection: GPS-enabled shoes to help keep track of Alzheimer's patients. They're not here yet, but shoe-maker Aetrex Worldwide is teaming with GPS technology firm GTX to develop such high-tech footwear for "wandering" seniors with Alzheimer's Disease.

"The technology will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes within 30 feet, anywhere on the planet," Andrew Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University who is advising the companies, is quoted as saying. There's no word on when the shoes will be available or what they will cost.

To learn more about this cutting-edge project:
- read this Agence France-Presse story via Yahoo

Microblogging service Twitter is fast becoming a viable tool for real-time healthcare communication. What you lose in depth from the 140-character limit per message you gain in immediacy.

In her regular iHealthBeat column, healthcare economist and health 2.0 backer Jane Sarasohn-Kahn calls Twitter "EZ-HIT" while exploring the many uses of Twitter in healthcare--some innovative, some potentially life-saving and, yes, a few that seem pointless. While we're still skeptical of Henry Ford Hospital's "tweeting" of a surgical procedure, Sarasohn-Kahn makes the case that such exercises might be useful in medical education. And we very much like the idea of instant public health alerts and motivational messages for those trying to kick the smoking habit.

As uber-CIO Dr. John Halamka put it, "If I can reach my staff and colleagues via the means of communication they find best--IM, email, blogs, microblogs, phone/voicemail, fax and Plaxo/LinkedIn--then I've met my goal of overcommunicating with all my stakeholders to ensure they understand my strategy, priorities and important health care IT news of the day."

For more about how Twitter is finding a foothold in healthcare:
- read Sarasohn-Kahn's iHealthBeat column

There's no doubt that smartphones are handy, but sometimes those tiny keyboards are tough to navigate. (Just try texting on a cold winter morning without removing your gloves.)

Well, Microsoft is working on marrying Internet search with speech-recognition technology to help with information recall. Dr. Bill Crounse, Microsoft's senior director for Worldwide Health, explores this on his HealthBlog by interviewing Tim Paek, a company researcher who specializes in interactive voice-response systems.

"As I was watching Tim find things on his mobile phone, I couldn't help but think of how this might apply to busy clinicians looking for new lab results or other patient information while on the fly," Crounse writes.

For a demo of this emerging technology:
- watch this video of Paek on Crounse's blog

Dr. Jay Parkinson of Brooklyn, NY, has become a regular at many health IT conferences of late, since he's one of the innovative physicians behind Hello Health, a medical practice that caters to young adults who live the fully mobile lifestyle, communicating through e-mail, text messaging and IM, but likely not from land lines. Parkinson is fast developing an international reputation, as this interview with London's The Guardian demonstrates. Q&A

> Bio-Reference Laboratories reports a quick ROI from a mobile specimen tracking system. Press release

> North Atlantic hurricane season is upon us, and the American Health Information Management Association is promoting electronic personal health records as safeguards for evacuees or patients of damaged healthcare facilities. Press release

> The Wall Street Journal looks at ways mobile devices are changing how consumers find and share health information. Story

> A rural TX hospital is employing a robot to connect stroke patients with specialists at Methodist Hospital in Houston. Article

And Finally... How much of a "round-up" is it if it only contains three items? Blog