Diabetic Foot Australia (DFA)
The Diabetic Foot Australia (DFA) initiative will use the expertise of the Wound CRC and its Participants in Australia to create a National body that will partner with related organisations and networks to empower patients, clinicians and researchers and will form a conduit for outcomes from WMI CRC.
A key output from the DFA Initiative will be the establishment of a national minimum dataset for DFU within Australia. This will form part of the Australian Wound Registry. The database will capture existing data in a consistent format across Australia and will form the basis of a National DFU Dashboard that will publish national key performance indicators on DFU’s, their occurrence, healing times, amputations, treatments, trends etc. This registry will also link with other registries across Australia (e.g. Queensland State-wide High Risk Foot Database).
Australian Aged Care Wound Services (AACW)
The CRC is developing a business model that will provide wound services into aged care.
The services offer a number of activities including online wound education programs, face to face training, educational resources and publications, wound prevalence surveys and a wound advisory service (telehealth).
This service will improve outcomes for residents with wounds and promote organisational, clinical and educational strategies for the prevention of wounds in residential aged care. Tailored packages of services will be negotiated with aged care facilities based on their specific needs.
Australian Wound Registry (AWR)
Currently the costs of wound management in Australia are not well understood. There is limited data available and it is not consistently collected. Without this information, health care policy makers, care providers, industry and patients are not able to make informed choices.
To address this issue, the WMI CRC is developing the Australian Wound Registry. (AWR) The AWR will provide connected and consistent data to enhance evidence-based practice in the management and prevention of wounds, inform healthcare policy and reimbursement, and generate a valuable industry database for product and marketing information.
Wound Healing Institute Australia (WHIA)
Wound Healing Institute Australia (WHIA) is a new not-for-profit spin-out from the WMI CRC and Participants WA Health, Curtin University and Silver Chain Group. WHIA delivers online education, telehealth and compliance audits that will impact clinicians and patients globally. WHIA’s services and products are now available via whia.com.au, and include the following:
- Accredited and credentialed online wound education modules;
Nationwide telehealth;
- Clinical audit services in wound management for a range of organisations;
- World leading research in partnership with the Wound CRC; and
- Health promotion, education and health services to rural, remote and indigenous communities.
Australian Wound Innovation Centre (AWIC)
The legacies of the WMI CRC in research, development, education and translation are planned to continue through the transition to a self-funded organisation, the Australian Wound Innovation Centre (“AWIC”).
The AWIC is an activity of the Wound Management Innovation Cooperative Research Centre with the investment and ongoing support of the Australian Government’s CRC Programme. The CRC Programme supports industry-led collaborations between industry, researchers and the community. The AWIC will be the legacy vehicle which will house a number of activities of the Centre to create a world first and unique perspective of the management of chronic wounds.
The Clinical Services arm of the Australian Wound Innovation Centre - Wound Innovations - will be the nation’s central facility dedicated to the provision of expert wound care, clinical research and face-to-face training. Please visit www.woundinnovations.com.au for more information
Health Economics & Healthcare Reform
The estimated cost of chronic wounds is huge - around $2.85 billion each year. This calculation was limited to hospitals and residential aged care. The inclusion of data from wounds in the community setting could easily double this figure, representing around 4% of the health care budget.
The goals of the CRC’s Health Economics project are to:
- Evaluate the current cost of wounds to the Australian economy and quantify the costs and benefits of adopting evidence-based practice
- Influence health policy to provide incentives for low cost wound care in Australia
- Conduct economic and sustainability analyses for new models of wound care services (eg. Australian Wound Clinic and Aged Care Wound Services)
