Not sure it qualifies for irony but I’m immersed in health right now—planning our upcoming EconHealth seminar, writing about health media—and I’ve just had to cancel a trip to cover a health conference because I’m flu-ish. Meanwhile, the flow of online health media news seems to be never-ending these days, in no small part because the largest healthcare IT conference is going on now in Orlando—Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2008 Annual Conference & Exhibition. A couple of items:

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) launches $3 million developer fund for online health tools: Microsoft has established the Microsoft HealthVault Be Well Fund, a $3 million fund “designed to empower providers with targeted funding to stimulate the research and development of online tools that improve health.” The apps all have to use Microsoft’s new HealthVault platform but “use of non-Microsoft applications on Windows, cross-platform development, and interoperability with other operating systems and applications are all encouraged.” Proposals for funding are being solicited for six tracks, including acute care, primary care and juvenile disease management. At the same time, Microsoft is hosting an open-source project for HealthVault. Microsoft is demonstrating early examples of HealthVault at the expo. More details in the release.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO’s health keynote: Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, is giving a keynote Thursday morning at HIMSS08 in Orlando. He’s expected to use the major health info expo to lay out Google’s health agenda. UBS analyst Ben Schachter even sent out a note about Google and health, mentioning the speech and expectation about hearing “more detail from the company in the coming weeks/months.” Schachter: “GOOG has been working on its healthcare strategy for some time (we’ve been talking about the co’s healthcare initiatives since Nov ‘06). We don’t expect much direct financial impact near-term, but note that health searches are one of the largest categories of queries. We view GOOG’s efforts to increase its presence in this area as important, and note potential for further growth/share gains in the healthcare ad vertical (where we estimate CPC’s are likely meaningfully above the co. average).  Last week, Google announced a pilot program with the Cleveland Clinic to store personal health records. We’ll have more Thursday.