Some good news for Delaware. From the Government side, Governor/Senator Carper gets a lot of the credit as does the General Assembly and even Governor Minner. From a recent article in Health IT News (The entire article can be found here):
Launched in 1997 by the Delaware General Assembly, DHIN was originally intended to enable administrative transactions. While the network wasn’t adopted by health plans, it found new life in 2003 by focusing on the electronic exchange of clinical data.
Senator Carper made personal appeals several State budgets ago to keep DHIN from being cut (Senator Nancy Cook and her wizened compatriots saw an easy $3 million to cut, but thought better of it after Senator Carper’s lobbying). It was one of the few times that I saw forward thinking occurring in Dover during my tenure.
The structure of DHIN (16 private sector members, 5 government members and 2 corporate health IT firms) is an example of the “Delaware Way” actually working for the benefit of everyone rather than for a select few. To quote again from the article:
More than half of the state’s physicians are using the DHIN network. More than 85 percent of all lab transactions completed for Delaware patients or in Delaware are sent through the system, and 80 percent of all hospitalizations are being reported through the system. Two additional hospitals and several small radiology and lab providers are currently discussing participation…
…Perez [DHIN Executive Director] credits many factors for DHIN’s successes, including long-time commitment from the involved organizations and a strategic, stringent planning process based on consensus of the multi-stakeholders.
Recognizing that Delaware’s small size has worked to our advantage, I hope that Senator Carper can provide leadership in Washington in the US Senate so that the Obama Administration can achieve success in getting universal coverage through localized effective tools rather than a huge, uncaring national bureaucracy.
Good to see we can find common ground sometimes. 🙂
Health IT networks help reduce medical mistakes and really cut costs in the long run.