Slow healing wounds, particularly diabetic feet, can take between 6 to 24 months to heal. This causes a high burden for individuals, families, clinicians, and the economy at large due to
extended sick leave. There are over 1M diabetic feet patients per year in the Netherlands and Germany, 4M in the EU and 6,7M in the US. Diabetes is projected to increase in the coming years, particularly in the West. Diabetic patients have high chance to develop ulcers (up to 39%), which 10-15% won’t heal and out of which 25% will need amputation. Established treatment in the clinic is the “wait and see” approach, consisting in frequent change of bandages and the use of antibiotics to prevent infection. This consumes a lot of nursing time and hospital space use, and overuses antibiotics. Micromechanical pressure waves stimulate wound healing, even in ulcerations. We are developing a patch that administers controlled pressure waves for wound healing therapeutics. In this voucher we want to increase our interaction with the 4TU federation and the participating University Medical Centers. We will identify synergistic organizations to evaluate collaboration and learn from their journeys.