Tech Impact's Data Innovation Lab and Delaware Public Health Association Release Interactive Report on Delaware's Healthforce
A greater understanding of Delaware’s nursing healthforce enables strategic workforce training and policy recommendations to help ease provider shortage
WILMINGTON, DE (July 17, 2023)—The Data Innovation Lab, a division of Tech Impact that accelerates the use of data insights and intelligence to address societal issues, in partnership with the Delaware Academy of Medicine/Delaware Public Health Association (Academy/DPHA), today announced a new report that informs the state of the nursing workforce population as well as strategic decision making and data-driven policy to help mitigate Delaware’s provider shortage. The report, an honoree of the Drexel LeBow Analytics 50, shows visual datasets that provide a better understanding of the current composition and challenges facing the workforce and highlight areas needing providers.
“Data integrated from variable sources enabled us to provide upskilling guidance for current nurses to obtain licenses that expand on the services they provide. Specifically, ARPNs play a unique role in the DE healthforce given their prescription and practice authorities independent of a physician,” said Héc Maldonado-Reis, Director, Research Development and Analytics at Tech Impact. “We found that targeting just five percent of the current RN population to advance their education and training could result in over 600 new APRNs in the DE health care workforce.”
Together, the Data Lab and DPHA are now developing a triage system for primary care where patients have timely and cost-effective access to APRNs who can guide them to specialized care and help ease the provider shortage in Delaware.
“The Data Lab team has been an invaluable partner in both developing and promoting the reports, which support the Academy/DPHA’s efforts to provide effective health and social care programs within underserved communities,” said Timothy Gibbs, Executive Director of Delaware Academy of Medicine / Delaware Public Health Association.
The Data Lab and DPHA project was recently selected for a 2023 Drexel LeBow Analytics 50 award for its healthforce report’s data-driven business impact. The Drexel LeBow Analytics 50 is a national recognition of analytics distinction honoring 50 organizations using analytics to solve business challenges. Honorees are selected by a panel of researchers and practitioners who evaluate nominations based on the complexity of the business challenge, the analytics solution implemented, and the solution’s business impact on the organization.
Tech Impact and the Academy/DPHA began the partnership in April 2022. The work has been ongoing ever since and ranges from understanding the chronic disease distributions in Delaware to now understanding the distribution of Delaware's healthforce, including the nursing healthforce, which was updated with new data as of March 2023. The work is part of a larger ARPA-funded initiative, Delaware Health Force which seeks to understand and remedy healthcare workforce shortages resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Looking ahead, the Data Lab and the Academy/DPHA will collect additional data as nurses and other providers renew their licenses. They plan to partner with policymakers who have influence over the development of affordable higher education nursing programs.
To learn more about the healthforce reports, visit: https://nursingdata.dehealthforce.org/