Diabetes UK has developed a new resource guide designed to encourage healthcare professionals to use root cause analysis (RCA) to help reduce the number of unnecessary diabetes-related amputations. RCA is a method used to identify root causes of an event. In terms of diabetes-related amputations, RCA can help reduce future amputations by determining to what extent an amputation was avoidable or unavoidable, and whether or not it was the best possible outcome for the person with diabetes.
It is estimated that four out of five amputations could be prevented as 80% are preceded by a foot ulcer, which are largely preventable. If an RCA determines that a diabetes-related amputation was avoidable, the process will help identify what changes are required to reduce the likelihood of the same event happening again.
Currently, there is still considerable variation in outcomes and processes across the diabetes foot care pathway, from the number and quality of foot checks delivered in primary care, to major and minor amputation rates. Diabetes UK’s new guide How to: Use root cause analysis to reduce diabetes related amputations includes instructions on how to complete an RCA, a data collection template, a primary care data collection tool and a reporting template.
The guide can be downloaded here.
