I visited Peru a few weeks ago to present a hospital-wide HIS and EHR to three hospitals. Over the past three years, I’ve presented EHRs and HISs in half a dozen countries including Peru, Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Malaysia.

I am worried for these staff at international hospitals. I thought EHR implementations were difficult in the US. It’s going to be nearly impossible abroad. They are going to make a lot of terrible mistakes on the path to health IT success.

Has everybody heard of Basis? It’s an advanced wrist-worn monitor. In addition to tracking activity like steps, it also can monitor heart rate, body temperature, and perspiration. It tries to tie this all together to motivate people to establish healthy habits. Incremental and consistent small changes are powerful for wellness. Basis tries to help people make those small changes.

At $199, Basis is a product geared towards people who are motivated to get — or more likely stay — healthy. It’s also geared towards people with the means to buy a $200 activity tracker. With that in mind, I was shocked when Basis announced that its first mobile app would be native Android and not iPhone.

Ringadoc announces a partnership with freeware EMR vendor Practice Fusion that will provide Ringadoc direct access to more than 100,000 active monthly Practice Fusion physicians.

Ringadoc launched in 2010 with the goal of delivering telephone-based virtual consultations available to patients 24 hours a day, for $40 per session. The business model left the company with plenty of patients, but too few physicians participating in the platform. In January, Ringadoc adjusted its strategy by offering an after hours messaging service to physicians in an effort to drive up participation.

Miami, FL-based CareCloud closes a $20 million Series B round led by Tenaya Capital, a technology VC firm. Other investors included Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital. This round, combined with earlier funding efforts brings CareCloud’s total funding to $44 million.

Founded in 2011, CareCloud is differentiating itself in the highly saturated ambulatory EHR market by developing home-grown solution that meet the needs of both clinical and financial end users, rather than acquiring other companies to expand its capabilities.

New York-based Health Startup Medivo has announced a $15 million Series B round led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Safeguard Scientifics and MentorTech Ventures. The round follows a $7 million Series A round in 2011 that was also led by Safeguard Scientifics and MentorTech Ventures.

Founded in 2010 by former MedSite CEO, Medivo strives to provide health monitoring to connect doctors, consumers, and clinical lab data. The applications are designed to help patients track key symptoms and labs and correlate the data with key behaviors like diet and medication compliance. On the physician side, patients are sorted by symptoms and labs to quickly identify who needs outreach support and who is doing well.

Facing increased pressure to reduce spending, health insurance company Aetna announces CarePass, an app that will allow patients to consolidate multiple sources of health information into a single, actionable platform, which is exactly what Aetna is hoping its customers will do.

Aetna is trying to deliver more than just a new convenient platform for quantified self enthusiasts. It wants to insert itself into the thought process of everyday consumers as they experience health issues and then drive cost saving behavioral changes. To do this, the platform will first make it easy to integrate data: fitness apps, weight loss apps, activity trackers, glucometers, blood pressure cuffs, and self reported information can be captured and uploaded onto the platform. The patient’s medical records from across the continuum of care will also be stored on the site.

An Apple video tells several stories of how its mobile ecosystem is impacting everyday patients across the globe through the rise of mHealth and medical apps.

San Diego-based WellDoc unveils a patient-centered type 2 diabetes app that provides real-time behavioral, educational, and motivational coaching to help patients stick to their diabetes treatment plans. The new platform, called BlueStar, requires a prescription from a physician. The cost will be covered by prescription benefit plans similar to other prescribed products.

BlueStar helps patients monitor blood glucose testing, assists with diet and exercise decisions, encourages medication compliance, and educates patients on diabetic standards of care such as A1c tests and foot exams.