New research shows one in every 22 patients in hospital have active diabetic foot disease costing Australia hundreds of millions of dollars a year, yet many hospitalisations could be avoided if people with the condition were provided with multi-disciplinary foot care.
Around 27,600 hospital admissions each year were caused by diabetic foot disease making it among the top twenty causes of hospitalisation.
A Queensland University of Technology study which investigated a representative sample of hospitalised patients in five hospitals across metropolitan and regional Queensland, found 4.6% of all patients had active diabetic foot disease and nearly half of those were in hospital because of their diabetic foot disease.
Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology and co-chair of Diabetic Foot Australia, Peter Lazzarini said this amounted to an annual cost of $350 million.
“This figure is much higher than we previously thought and is still very much a conservative estimate, because this cost only relates to patients admitted because of their diabetic foot disease in public hospitals.”
Mr Lazzarini said diabetic foot disease also caused 4,400 amputations and nearly 1,700 deaths in Australia each year.
“Unfortunately, we also found that people hospitalised because of diabetic foot disease had rarely received the recommended multi-disciplinary foot care needed to properly treat their disease in the year prior to their hospitalisation.
“We know from our previous research in Australia that when people with diabetic foot disease receive this recommended multi-disciplinary foot care we can prevent around half of the hospitalisations, amputations and costs that would have occurred without this care. Diabetic foot disease is a readily preventable disease if diagnosed and treated early.”
“Our study, and similar research from Europe and the US, firstly recommends everyone with diabetes presenting to a hospital needs to have their feet screened for diabetic foot disease. This would help identify nearly everyone who presents to an Australian hospital that needs treatment for this disease but doesn’t necessarily know it.
“Secondly, everyone who is found to have diabetic foot disease needs to be seen by a multi-disciplinary foot disease team both in and out of hospital. In the UK they are up in arms that 20% of their hospitals do not have these teams. We estimate only 20% of our hospitals in Australia actually have these teams and this needs to significantly improve.
“Thirdly, people with diabetes need to see their GP or podiatrist at least every year for a foot screen. Unfortunately, people with diabetes can lose feeling in their feet and left unchecked diabetic foot disease can develop in the form of sores, infections and poor circulation. We know that about 50 per cent of the over one million Australians with diabetes have a foot screen each year. This means we don’t know if diabetic foot disease has affected the other 50 per cent and sometimes it’s too late when we do. If we can pick up diabetic foot disease early and refer people to these multi-disciplinary foot teams we can prevent thousands of hospitalisations, amputations and even deaths.
“We know these simple preventative measures can save our hospital system millions and millions of dollars each year, but most importantly, change the lives of thousands of Australians with diabetes by empowering them to keep both their feet firmly on the ground and out of hospital.”
QUT’s Specialty Diabetes Clinic within QUT Health Clinics can be contacted on 07 3138 9777 http://www.healthclinics.qut.edu.au/
The study was published in BMJ Open.
