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The "Foundations in Global e-Health" is a capacity building initiative designed for providers, managers, and ICT professionals in the healthcare sector. Currently being trialled through PANACeA (a pan-Asian e-health research network) it is intended to offer the course in other developing regions from 2011. Using adult education principles, this on-line, self-paced course is offered in a modular fashion comprising 12 modules; the workload of each module is in the range of 20-24 hrs, with modules 2 to 12 requiring 1 month for completion. The evidence-based curriculum is designed to provide an introduction to e-Health such that graduates of the program have a solid and standardised baseline awareness and understanding--a common foundation--from which they are better able to collaboratively communicate and independently develop and assess e-Health initiatives within their respective settings and countries.

The Environmental e-Health Research and Training Program has completed its scoping study to understand the breadth of a new field of research: Environmental e-Health. Nearly every aspect of modern life is associated, directly or indirectly, with application of technology, from a cup of coffee, through transportation to and from work, to appliances in the home and industrial activities. In recent decades the rapidly increasing application of information and communications technologies (ICT) has added to the cacophony of technological 'noise' around us. Research has shown that technology use, including ICTs, has impact upon the environment. Studying environmental impact in such a complex global setting is daunting. e-Health is now being used as a convenient microcosm of ICT application within which to study these impacts, and is particularly poignant given that e-Health's environmental harms conflict with its noble goals of 'doing no harm'. The study has identified impacts, both benefits and harms in all three life-cycle phases for e-Health: up-stream (materials extraction, manufacturing, packaging, distribution), mid-stream (use period), and down-stream (end-of-life processes--disposal, recycling). In addition the literature shows that a holistic 'Life Cycle Assessment' approach is essential to understand the complexity of the setting, and determine the true balance between total harms and total benefits, and for whom.