Each month TecTrends Reporters survey developments across the tech industry, and this month I thumb through the TecTrend Reporter on healthcare.

The articles summarized in this issue range from current clinical developments to legal and regulatory issues and the growing crossover of the healthcare and computer sectors.

• Scientific American looks at the H1N1 flu, commonly called ’swine flu,’ and the gap it has revealed in our ability to track disease patterns among livestock. 
• Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology reports that the pharma industry is now betting heavily on RNA interference (RNAi) technology to offer subtler, more precisely targeted drugs. A snag: Delivering these drugs to their targets has proven challenging.

Washington’s political fights do not figure heavily in these articles – anyone who wants a dose of healthcare politics will have to go elsewhere. (Don’t worry, politics is easy to find on the Web.)

But some articles here do touch on the real world issues and concerns that have thrust healthcare into the political arena.

• In Technology Review, Andy Kessler has tough words for the healthcare industry on the subject of digitizing health records. The industry has been in no rush to digitize, he argues, because the current chaotic system helps to ‘keep medicine’s lucrative business model hidden.’

• Villains are harder to find in Clinical Laboratory News, which looks at the debate in laboratories over testing for deficiency in prohormone Vitamin D. But there is also a back story here involving research findings, the mass media, and the public.

Meanwhile the tech industry is looking for a piece of the healthcare sector.

• Also from Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Microsoft’s health solutions group has grown from four to 400 members. This year Microsoft released its Amalga Life Sciences 2009 solution package for life sciences research information.

• From Health Management Technology, software as a service (SaaS) is finding a home in the healthcare sector, with NYU’s Langone Medical Center choosing an SaaS system called ePREMIS to straighten out a muddle of legacy administrative and accounting systems.

These are only a handful of the 33 articles conveniently summarized in this month’s TecTrends Reporter on Healthcare. Read the whole Reporter to give you a big picture view of the whirlwhind of activity taking place across the healthcare technology spectrum.