Delaware Health Force (DHF) is a public/private partnership between the State of Delaware and the Delaware Academy of Medicine / Delaware Public Health Association (Academy/DPHA).

Seed funding for DHF was provided by the Delaware Health Care Commission and from Academy/DPHA internal fund endowments.  Major grant funding has been provided by the State of Delaware’s Department of Labor through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) pandemic relief funds.

Before the pandemic, tectonic workforce and demographic challenges were faced by almost every primary industry in our state and our nation: the aging of our population, the related increase in the incidence and burden of chronic disease, and the concurrent aging of the healthcare workforce. The financial impact is clear: the healthcare industry is rapidly approaching one-fifth of the United States GDP.

We developed a program that took a multi-faceted approach to healthcare workforce issues and ultimately to resulting healthcare outcomes.  The first component was a core data and research arm that would, for the first time, coordinate and analyze a massive amount of data from the Division of Professional Regulation, CMS, the DHIN, and others.

The goal was to provide data for decision-making, resource allocation, and predictive planning.  The data is updated every month at the public website https://dehealthforce.org .

The second component was to address immediate educational needs of Delaware’s health care workforce through the expansion of graduate medical education for multiple provider types. This advanced education has addressed new and continuing education needs directly impacting health care delivery. Hundreds of providers have been directly impacted as reported by ChristianaCare and their partners.

The third component was to expand our Delaware Mini Medical School initiative (operating since 2009), and significantly increase the scope and reach of this program throughout the state, encouraging youth to explore a career in the health sciences. Counts of students graduating from the program, coupled with long-term follow-up, provide us with success metrics.

Finally, at a time when loan repayment programs are abundant, we developed an interest-free loan program for Delaware residents attending Delaware institutions of higher learning who were willing to commit to practice in Delaware after graduation. The number of loans are our primary metric at this time.