The Amputee Coalition has released a white paper, “Roadmap for Stimulating Limb Loss Research and Improving Care: Recommendations From the 2015 Limb Loss Task Force,” which lists five recommendations to drive improvements in clinical care, provide tools to educate key stakeholders about the limb-loss community, and generate evidence to support advocating for developing public policy that improves the lives of those affected by limb loss.
The white paper is a result of the Limb Loss Task Force Summit that met in Boston in March 2015, during which experts on limb loss care and rehabilitation as well as advocates for those with limb loss gathered to discuss the state of limb loss in the United States, with a focus on developing strategies to address the lack of research about patients with limb loss. The task force comprised experts on the care and rehabilitation of patients with limb loss, limb-loss prevention, vascular medicine, diabetes education and management, healthcare policy, and current healthcare model systems administration. Their work builds on the recommendations from previous task force summits by exploring the challenges and opportunities facing the limb-loss community, particularly how a Limb Loss Model System provides a platform for improving clinical care for patients with limb loss and creates an infrastructure to promote research about the limb-loss community.
“Education, research, and advocacy are the keys to sustaining and ensuring that people with limb loss maintain productive and successful lives,” said Jack Richmond, interim president and CEO. “We sincerely thank these foremost experts in the field for dedicating three days to study the challenges at hand and provide recommendations for the future.”
For a printed copy of the paper, contact the Amputee Coalition, 900 East Hill Avenue, Suite 390, Knoxville, Tennessee 37915.