What is it about?
Due to a large increase in the number of people with diabetes, combined with the aging population, means that the absolute number of patients with diabetes related foot ulcers is likely to continue to increase. It is therefore necessary to provide close clinical follow-up care for people with diabetes both in primary and specialist care. Information and communication technologies may enable more integrated treatment and care pathways across organizational boundaries. We evaluated the effect of telemedicine follow-up in primary care compared to standard hospital outpatient care in patients with diabetes-related foot ulcers. Our aim was to show that healingtime in telemedicine follow-up was not worse than traditional follow-up.
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Why is it important?
This telemedicine intervention was implemented in a novel setting. Given the findings of no difference in terms of healing time and death, and significant fewer amputations in the telemedicine group, the use of telemedicine in the follow-up care for patients with diabetes foot ulcers is a promising care option.
Perspectives
Qualitative sub-studies provided a more comprehensive evaluation of the ongoing processes during the trial. In further studies we will expand the model and include as well other types of ulcer to make the model more robust for implementation.
Marjolein M. Iversen
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Effect of Telemedicine Follow-up Care on Diabetes-Related Foot Ulcers: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Noninferiority Trial, Diabetes Care, November 2017, American Diabetes Association,
DOI: 10.2337/dc17-1025.
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