Connected Health

Patricia Mechael has been appointed executive vice president, Personal Connected Health Alliance at HIMSS, effective April 15, HIMSS President and CEO Steve Lieber announced on Thursday. Mechael will serve as consultant for HIMSS until her official appointment. She'll facilitate market analysis, business planning processes and guide immediate term goals. At PCHA, she hopes to advance trends toward self-care technology as a way to address challenges such as chronic illness management and mental health. [Also: The making of an mHealth maven] Mechael most recently served as executive director of the mHealth Alliance and as Principal and Policy Lead for HealthEnabled. She also has collaborated with the mHealth Summit for more than seven years. She has 15 years of experience in field building and thought leadership. At HealthEnabled, she concentrates on global thought leadership and advocacy, research and policy work in Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda, while working with the World Health Organization to create a Global Health Index and State of the World's Digital Health Report. She was recently awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center fellowship for a study entitled, the Future of Health is Digital that highlighted the use of technology to improve patient outcomes and strengthen the health system. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Dell has signed on as an industry collaborator of HIMSS Innovation Center, joining other major health IT players at the 30,000-square-foot testing and exhibition facility in Cleveland.

Several major health insurers are part of a coalition that is promoting texting as a way to keep expectant women, new moms and their babies healthy.