Multidisciplinary clinics reduce treatment costs and improve patient outcomes in diabetic foot disease

Diabetic foot disease poses a significant and rising financial burden on health care systems worldwide. This study investigated the effect of a new multidisciplinary diabetic foot clinic (MDDFC) in a large tertiary hospital on patient outcomes and treatment cost.

Patients' records were retrospectively reviewed to identify all patients who had been managed in a new MDDFC between July 2014 and July 2017. The wound episode-the period from initial presentation to the achievement of a final wound outcome-was identified, and all relevant inpatient and outpatient costs were extracted using a fully absorbed activity-based costing methodology. Risk factor, treatment, outcome, and costing data for this cohort were compared with a group of patients with diabetic foot wounds who had been managed in the same hospital before the advent of the MDDFC using a generalized linear mixed model.

The MDDFC and pre-MDDFC cohorts included 73 patients with 80 wound episodes and 225 patients with 265 wound episodes, respectively. Compared with the pre-MDDFC cohort, the MDDFC group had fewer inpatient admissions (1.56 vs 2.64; P ≤ .001). MDDFC patients had a lower major amputation rate (3.8% vs 27.5%; P ≤ .001), a lower mortality rate (7.5% vs 19.2%; P ≤ .05), and a higher rate of minor amputation (53.8% vs 31.7%; P ≤ .01). No statistically significant difference was noted in the rate of excisional débridement, skin graft, and open or endovascular revascularization. In the MDDFC cohort, the median total cost, inpatient cost, and outpatient cost per wound episode was New Zealand dollars (NZD) 22,407.465 (U.S. dollars [USD] 17,253.74), NZD 21,638.93 (USD 16,661.97), and NZD 691.915 (USD 532.77), respectively. The MDDFC to pre-MDDFC wound episode total cost ratio was 0.7586 (P < .001).

This study is the first to compare the cost and treatment outcomes of diabetic foot patients treated in a large tertiary hospital before and after the introduction of an MDDFC. The results show that an MDDFC improves patient outcomes and reduces the cost of treatment. MDDFCs should be adopted as the standard of care for diabetic foot patients.