D-Foot, the eHealth tool for risk stratification and foot assessment in diabetes

Purpose and goal

Patients with diabetes should preferably have their feet examined annually. The risk to develop a foot ulcer should be objectively assessed. Until now, no valid and reliable routine have been available that assessed the foot ulcer risk in an objective manner. The solution is to use the D-Foot, a web program for risk classification and foot assessment. The D-Foot in primarily intended to be used at the departments of prosthetics and orthotics. The overall aim with early intervention is to reduce the number of foot ulcer/amputations, sustain a good quality of life and reduce costs.

Expected results and effects

The overall aim with the use of D-Foot is that patients at risk to develop foot ulcers are recognized at an early stage. Patients at risk should be offered the recommended interventions (podiatry, regular controls, assistive devices such as foot orthoses and shoes) without delay. The steering group for D-Foot expects that the spread and use of the D-Foot will improve the patients security, the prevention and care of foot problems in diabetes.

Planned approach and implementation

A web program, the D-Foot version 2 is now ready for use at the departments of prosthetics and orthotics in Region Västra Götaland. The final version is a result of a fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between IT programmers, IT architectures, clinicians, patients representatives and steering group for D-Foot. An easy to use web program considering the patients integrity and data security has been built.