HHS program pairs internal department employees with external entrepreneurs; Health IT training programs don't keep up with workforce demand;

> The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is looking to pair five to 10 private-sector technology entrepreneurs--aka, external innovation fellows--with its own employees--aka, host innovators--for its new HHS Innovation Fellows Program, it announced late last week. Among the projects the external fellows and host innovators would be collaborating on are an electronic infrastructure for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), building health resilience technology to withstand natural disasters, and electronic tracking for the nation's organ transplant system. Announcement

> College educators are worried that current health IT training programs at the university level aren't keeping up with the demand for workers in the industry, according to a recently published article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "There's a major skills gap right now," Ryan Sandefer of the Duluth, Minn.-based College of St. Scholastica told the Tribune. "There's just tons of data. The problem is, there's not a whole lot of people with the technical expertise in how to build the systems correctly or how to use the data accurately." Article

> Even hospital CIOs need a break from the daily regulation rigmarole. The latest healthsystemCIO.com survey finds that all but 6 percent of responding CIOs plan to take some sort of vacation this summer, and some of those 6 percent simply haven't planned anything yet. Still, nearly half (48.4 percent) still plan on checking their email at least once a day. Article

And Finally… Not exactly Felix and Oscar. Article