Telemedicine consultations for treatment of diabetic foot ulcers

 

Who is the patient population?

The patient population in cluster 3 is patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus and which as a consequence of their condition develop foot ulcers and are referred to specialist treatment at the hospital.

What characterises the interventions?

The telemedicine solution replaces conventional consultations at the outpatient clinic with consultations in the patient's home. As a result, patients are no longer forced to spend time travelling back and forth to the hospital, and ulcer specialists can instruct homecare nurses in the care of each patient without leaving the hospital.

Accordingly, the aim of the Ulcer Project is to examine whether the use of telemedicine applications can:

- improve the therapeutic process through increased collaboration and better co-ordination between health care professionals working in different sectors;

- reduce number of acute contacts to hospital;

- improve quality of life for the patients;

- assess the economic and organisational impact of the interventions at both the hospital and municipalities (responsible for homecare), and examine the user acceptability of the telemedicine applications (both patients and professionals).

What are the expected results at cluster level?

All four hospital units in the Region of Southern Denmark, incl. seven departments and out-patient clinics, and 20 municipalities are collaborating in a cross-sectorial research co-operation in cluster 3. The data will be collected at cluster level, i.e. the whole Region of Southern Denmark, according to the MAST framework.

 

Which regions participate?

Region of Southern Denmark - Denmark

 

Timing

	Start of trial/inclusion of patients	Inclusion complete*	Follow-up period ended	Expected time of publishing of results*
Region of Southern Denmark	October 2010	October 2012	February 2013	Ultimo 2013

*Please note that these are estimates and are subject to change as the trial progress.