The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $220 million in economic stimulus funds to health information technology pilot programs in 15 cities.

More than 130 organizations submitted applications for the Beacon Community awards. The 15 winners ranged from the Western New York Clinical Information Exchange in Buffalo, which will use health IT to improve care for diabetic patients, to the University of Hawaii at Hilo, which will implement a regional health information exchange.

"The most important health-care innovations are those that are designed and tested by providers and community leaders all across the country," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "The Beacon Community program will tap the best ideas across America and demonstrate the enormous benefit health IT will have to improving health and care within our communities."

The awards will create an estimated 1,100 jobs, paying an average of $70,000 a year. They also are designed to accelerate nationwide development of health IT infrastructure.

Another $30 million is available for additional Beacon Community awards. The funding is part of the stimulus package's $2 billion effort to promote health IT and provide an electronic health record for each American by 2014.

Projects in 17 states get energy research awards

The Department of Energy awarded a second, $106 million round of funding for advanced energy research projects.

The awards, which were funded by the economic stimulus bill, went to 37 projects in 17 states that will focus on innovative biofuels, ultra-high-energy batteries for electric cars and advanced technologies to remove carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Most of the recipients were educational institutions, but small businesses won one-fourth of the awards. One of the companies selected for an award was Planar Energy Devices Inc. in Orlando, which received $4 million to develop a solid-state lithium battery for electric vehicles.

DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy received 540 initial concept papers for the awards and encouraged applications from 180 projects. Multiple review panels helped select the winners, based on scientific and technical merit and the projects' potential for meeting the nation's energy goals.

A third round of ARPA-E projects will be announced this summer.