16 Del. Code § 2003 - Duties and authority of state agency

The state agency, defined as the Division of Public Health within the Department of Health, must compile, correlate, analyze and develop data that it collects.   The state agency must prepare and distribute reports to health care purchasers, insurers, provider and the general public.  Data collected must be limited to the Delaware uniform claims and billing data set. 

The state agency must periodically disseminate reports based on the data collected such as, charge levels, age specific utilization patterns, morbidity patterns, patient origin, and trends in health care charges.  Before releasing and of the information, the state agency must allow hospitals and nursing homes to review the data, submit corrects, and submit independent data interpretations to be disseminated with the report.

The state agency must establish a Hospital Discharge Technical Advisory Committee to study issues on compiling, disseminating, and confidentiality of discharge data.  The Committee must be composed of 9 members, which must include hospital and nursing home representatives from the Delaware Healthcare Association and the Delaware Health Care Facilities Association. 

The state agency must report to the General Assembly annually, outlining its actions.  The state agency may issue reports on special medical needs, demographic characteristics, access to health care, and need for financing health care for certain populations.  The state agency may also study and issue reports on:

• The incidence of medical and surgical procedures;
• Mortality rates for specific diagnoses;
• Infection rates for specific treatments and diagnoses;
• Morbidity rates for specific diagnoses;
• Readmission rates for specific diagnoses and treatments;
• Incidence rates or specific diagnoses and treatments.