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QDiabetes risk tool helping identify patients most at risk
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In 2015 Researchers developed a new risk tool to help GPs speed up the identification and treatment of diabetic patients at most risk of blindness and amputation.
The QDiabetes (amputation and blindness) algorithm has been shown to successfully identify people most likely to develop two of the most serious complications of diabetes at an early stage by ‘red flagging’ combinations of information from patients and their medical records.
The algorithm was developed using anonymised patient data from the QResearch database.
Research published in The BMJ has shown that the risk prediction models “can help to provide the basis of a more individualised and holistic method of tackling these complications in patients”.
The report’s authors say the tools “are one example of the value of the data held by the NHS in its electronic medical records and administrative databases”.
Tools have great potential to improve NHS clinical care as well as giving patients information to help them make better decisions about their own health”
The tools “have great potential to improve NHS clinical care as well as giving patients information to help them make better decisions about their own health,” they add.
The tools are based on variables that patients are likely to know, or that are routinely recorded in general practice computer systems.
The research was led by Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox, from the University’s division of primary care and director of medical software company ClinRisk Ltd which produced the software.
She said: “To our knowledge, these are the first tools for predicting the 10 year risk of both blindness and amputation, two of the complications that most concern patients with diabetes and affect quality of life.
“We are grateful for the continuing support of the EMIS [now Optum] GP practices that contribute their high quality data to QResearch. Our research would not be possible without them.”
A simple web calculator has been produced that doctors and patients can use to determine the 10 year risk of amputation and blindness.
Diabetic eye disease is now the second most common cause of blindness in people of working age in the United Kingdom, while more than 7,000 diabetes-related amputations take place annually in England.
QDiabetes (amputation and blindness) has been developed for the UK population, and is intended for use in the UK though could be used internationally subject to local validation.