Delaware health officials say the state Department of Health and Social Services will pay doctors to join the state’s largest medical data sharing service.
The Delaware Health Care Commission (DHCC) is prepared to award up to 25 First State providers as much as $8,000 to join DHIN, the Delaware Health Information Network.
Delaware Director of Healthcare Reform Steven Costantino says getting all state providers on DHIN will help the statewide effort to move towards care based on patient data.
“If we’re measuring critical clinical outcomes you have to have the ability within the practice to have that data capability—that data analytics capability—and connecting to the DHIN will be a major step in that process,” said Constantino.
But some primary care practices are still on pad and paper, and even for those who do have electronic medical records, Medical Society President Dr. Andrew Dahlke says it costs about $25,000 to hook up to DHIN.
“Most of the primary care physicians are barely making ends meet and trying to get them to incur more costs is difficult," said Dahlke.
Costantino (COS-tan-TEE-no) says he hopes these grants are enough for doctors in Delaware to make the move.
“That’s always possible that there would be some kind of resistance, but we’re hoping just the opposite. We’re hoping this is the incentive they need to, kind of, cross that threshold,” said Constantino.
DHIN holds more than 2 million patient records.
Applications for state mini-grants to join are due by the end of November. Qualifying practices could be private primary care offices, behavioral health providers or Federally Qualified Health Centers.