Application of Advanced Wound Care Products and Techniques in the Northern Ontario First Nations Community

First Nations people living in Canada are among the highest risk population for diabetes and related complications. Community-based and culturally appropriate prevention strategies and surveillance of diabetes indicators among this high-risk population are essential to reducing health disparities. Aboriginal people with diabetes also experience disparities in diabetes related complications and mortality. For example, minor skin abrasions and cuts on the feet can occur without pain or without the patient's awareness. Minor abrasions and cuts can become chronic, infected wounds. Once infection reaches bone, amputation of the limb often results. Both hospitalization rates for people in the North West LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) living with diabetes and the diabetes related amputation rate are more than double the provincial average. Canada spends $1.5 billion on direct costs of diabetic amputations. In the LIHN area alone, there were more than 100 amputations last year which cost up to $43 million. This proposal brings together advanced wound care treatement and advanced woundcare products to the First Nations communities in Northern Ontario. The creation of a Wound Care Centre of Excellence in the Fort Frances area with a focus on limb preservation in combination with a new tissue engineered wound care product-DermGEN, created through research Dalhousie University-will be applied in a clinical study to assess the efficacy of this product in treating diabetic ulcers in the First Nation's community. DermGEN is unique in its ability to be used in such a manner as it can be stored at room temperature, can easily be transported, requires a simple wound bed preparation, and aftercare requirements can be managed by pateints at home. It is expected that the results of the study will be able to develop a new paradigm, including diagnostic and treatment modalities, that will