Establishing a multidisciplinary partnership integrating podiatric care into the Quebec public health-care system to improve diabetic foot outcomes: A retrospective cohort.

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are one of the main complications of diabetes affecting many Canadians that need to be effectively managed. There is limited data concerning outcomes of Canadian patients with DFUs treated with a team approach in the public health system. Podiatrists are known to be key members of a multidisciplinary team approach to DFUs management, but in Quebec, Canada, they are only available in private practice. The aim of this study is to evaluate diabetic foot outcomes after integrating podiatric care into in-hospital wound care clinic settings. A 12-month retrospective cohort study was conducted into a new organization named the Pododiabetology University Center (PUC), which is described in this article. Healing rate and healing time were the outcomes measured. The analysis was performed by comparing data collected before and after the integration of the podiatrists. Preliminary results indicate that 73.2% of DFUs (n=52) healed in an average of 19.8 weeks (time to wound closure). Previous data collected on 15 individuals before the integration of podiatric care showed a 27.3% of DFUs resolved in 44.6 weeks. The findings suggest that a patient with DFUs who receives wound care from a multidisciplinary team that includes a podiatrist can improve both their healing rate and time. An integrated multidisciplinary approach including podiatrists for patients affected by acute DFU is highly suggested in the literature in order to reduce the number of hospitalizations, amputations and financial burden, which are variables that could be evaluated in further studies.