Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Recently there has been a steady increase in direct costs for treatment of patients with diabetic foot. Therefore, cost-effectiveness analysis of different treatment strategies of patients is important for healthcare organizations and is an additional argument when deciding on the allocation of financial resources.

Aim: A comparative analysis of cost-effectiveness of non-specialized and specialized medical care for patients with diabetic foot.

Research design and methods: In a retrospective study included medical documents of 89 patients with diabetic foot who were treated in specialized (40 patients) and non-specialized (49) medical facilities (inpatient and outpatient) in 2007. Neuropathic plantar foot ulcers 1A,2A,1B,2B,3B classes (University of Texas Diabetic Foot Wound Classification System) were determined in all of them Patients in the comparison groups were comparable in age, sex, type and duration of diabetes (P>0.05). Was assessed direct costs and cost-effectiveness analysis in a group of outpatient and inpatient treatment. We have analyzed the effectiveness of non-specialized and specialized treatment (healing time, recurrence rate of diabetic foot at 1 year after healing) and calculated of direct costs and cost-effectiveness analysis in a groups. We calculated only the direct costs, which included the cost of hospitalization, TCC or half-shoe, medical and nursing time, diagnostic evaluation (bacteriological study, X-ray, and other), dressing materials, antimicrobial treatment, antiseptic solutions.

Results: Cost-effectiveness analysis confirmed that the outpatient specialized care compared with non-specialized more efficiently with both clinical and economic points of view. Economic analysis has shown that a specialized hospital care compared with non-specialized more cost-effective.

Conclusions: Our study shows that specialized outpatient and inpatient care for patients with diabetic foot is most advantageous.