The urgent need for change in diabetic foot care

These are the stats and facts that keep us up at night, and drive us to work so hard to stop DFUs and other foot complications.

Diabetic foot complications and amputations are a huge problem in the U.S.

#1
Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) are the #1 cause of lower extremity amputations.3
People who have diabetic foot complications fear amputations
More than death.4
There are
34 Million Americans with Diabetes.1
After a diabetic amputation,
0%
of patients die within 5 years.6
0%
Patients with diabetes have a 34% lifetime risk of developing a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU).2
Every 3 Minutes
another American loses a limb due to diabetes. Most of these are avoidable.5

The problem is getting worse.

In one recent year, the rate of lower extremity amputations more than doubled.7

The least privileged Americans suffer the most from diabetic foot complications.

Diabetic patients living in the nation’s poorest communities are 39% more likely to have a high-level amputation.8

Native American, Black and Hispanic hospital patients with a diabetic foot infection had a much higher risk of major amputation than their White counterparts.9

“The Right to Avoid Preventable Amputations” is part of the American Diabetes Association’s “Health Equity Bill of Rights.”10

Diabetic foot complications cost our healthcare system a lot.

Diabetic foot care is the single largest category of excess medical costs associated with diabetes.11

A single amputation costs as much as $100,000.12

The total cost of lower extremity complications is over $100 Billion.13

That’s a lot of reasons to be concerned.

Podimetrics is a transformative new model for helping prevent diabetic foot complications that’s clinically proven and already here.

Meet Podimetrics

1. https://www.diabetes.org/resources/statistics/cost-diabetes
2. Armstrong, et al, N Eng J Med. 2017
3. Brownrigg, et al. Euro J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2013, Hicks, et al. Ann Vasc Surg. 2016
4. Wukich, et al. Foot Ankle Spec. 2018
5. http://diabetes.org/get-involved/advocacy/amputation-prevention-alliance
6. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Limited Data Set. 2013-2020
7. Puck, et al. Ann Vasc Surg. 2020
8. Skrepnek, et al, A Diabetic Emergency One Million Feet Long: Disparities and Burdens of Illness among Diabetic Foot Ulcer Cases within Emergency Departments in the United States, 2006–2010, PLOS One, August 6, 2015
9. (Based on nationwide hospital inpatient data, 2002-2015) Tan, et al, Disparities in outcomes of patients admitted with diabetic foot infections, PLOS One, February 4, 2019
10. https://www.diabetes.org/healthequitynow
11. American Diabetes Association. Economic costs of diabetes in the U.S. In 2007. Diabetes Care. 2008;31:596–615.
12. Diabetic Amputations A ‘Shameful Metric’ Of Inadequate Care | California Healthline
13. Armstrong, et al. J Foot Ankle Res. 2020 & The Cost of Diabetes | ADA