In the latest instance, the Association of Health Care Journalists is adding an online category to their four-year-old Excellence in Health Care Journalism awards. The health care writers’ group honors the year’s top stories in 11 categories, including coverage in of public and consumer health, medical research, health care business and ethics.

In the online category, writers can submit multimedia components to entries in all categories, to be considered at the judges’ discretion.

First-place winners receive $500 plus an all-expense paid trip to the organization’s annual conference, which takes place April 16-19, 2009, in Seattle. Entries must be submitted no later than Jan. 26, 2009. More information is available at the group’s Website here.

Prize-granting institutions are slowly adding online news to the criteria they use to judge awards. The Pulitzer Prizes began permitting online elements in a majority of journalism categories in 2007. The American Association for the Advancement of Science annual awards includes an online category and the Education Writers Association welcomes online entries in any category of its annual contest.

To see how sophisticated online storytelling has gotten, look no further than the Online News Association, which represents reporters, editors, Website designers and other journalists working in online news. The ONA announced the winners of its annual Online Journalism Awards in September, including Fixing D.C.’s Schools, the Washington Post’s investigative report on the District’s troubled public school system that included interactive maps, videos and narrated videos. You can see a complete list of 2008 ONA winners here.