Wound Management

5G connectivity enables smartphone wound management to improve clinical outcomes and reduce cost of careivity.

Smartphone apps leveraging advanced camera technology and artificial intelligence (AI) present a transformative approach to diagnosing and tracking wound management. These apps enable real-time assessment and continuous monitoring of wounds, providing immediate feedback and facilitating timely intervention. AI algorithms can analyse wound images to assess healing progress, supporting clinicians to detect potential complications and adjust treatment plans. This technology enhances the diagnosis, ensuring patients receive optimal care promptly.

The advent of 5G connectivity plays a crucial role in maximising the potential of these smartphone apps. With 5G, devices benefit from fast, reliable, and ubiquitous connectivity, allowing district nursing staff to use them effectively, regardless of their location. This seamless connectivity ensures that staff can access and update patient data in real time, coordinate care more efficiently, and respond swiftly to any changes in a patient's condition.

For patients, these technologies help to avoid suffering and harm. Improved care coordination supports more effective healing of wounds and empower patient involvement in the process.

For healthcare professionals, this means an enhanced ability to manage a higher volume of patients without compromising care quality. The technology allows for a diverse skill mix among staff, reducing the burden on registered nurses by enabling care assistants to handle routine monitoring tasks. This optimisation not only improves staff productivity but also enhances job satisfaction by allowing nurses to focus on more complex cases and upskilling care assistants.

The financial implications are significant, as chronic wounds account for substantial healthcare costs annually. By ensuring faster diagnoses, improving care coordination, and reducing hospital readmissions, 5G-enabled wound management apps can lead to substantial cost savings. These innovations align with the objectives of the NHS Long Term Plan, aiming to enhance patient outcomes, prevent harm, and increase the efficiency of healthcare delivery.

Effective case studies are emerging of this technology including Healthy io & LiveWell South West and Liverpool 5G Pressure Ulcer Management System in the UK, as well as international case studies such as Swift in the USA amongst others. 

Examples:

Healthy io & LiveWell South West

Liverpool 5G Pressure Ulcer Management System

Swift

What is the problem to be solved?

Wounds such as pressure ulcers, lower limb and surgical wounds can be debilitating for patients, causing significant pain and affecting quality of life. Chronic lower limb wounds can restrict patients to being house bound for years or lead to amputations. Using prompt, evidence based, and consistent treatment wounds can often be healed in a number of months. 
 

Wounds are usually treated by frontline district nurses visiting patients in the home. Difficulties in staffing levels are linked to unwarranted variation in care, in part from inconsistencies in staff involvement, dressing choice and treatment plan [Cohort study evaluating the burden of wounds to the UK’s National Health Service in 2017/2018: update from 2012/2013 | BMJ Open]. Adding to this, there are recognised challenges in the digital infrastructure of wound care, with a lack of data and intuitive systems to track wound care between different clinicians.

What is the solution to the problem?

Smartphone apps can use the camera and AI to diagnose and track wound management over the course of the treatment. These apps facilitate real-time assessment and ongoing monitoring of wounds, delivering instant feedback and enabling prompt interventions. AI-powered algorithms analyse wound images to evaluate healing progress, helping clinicians identify potential complications and modify treatment plans accordingly. This technology can improve the speed of wound diagnosis, ensuring that patients receive the best possible care without delay.

The integration of 5G connectivity is crucial in maximising the effectiveness of these smartphone apps. 5G provides fast, reliable, and consistent connectivity, enabling district nursing staff to use these devices wherever they are. This seamless connectivity allows for real-time data transmission, ensuring that nurses can access and update patient information on the go. Consequently, they can provide timely interventions, improve care coordination, and enhance overall patient management.

With 5G-enabled devices, district nurses are empowered to deliver high-quality care in a more flexible and efficient manner. This technological advancement not only supports better patient outcomes but also optimises the workflow for healthcare professionals by allowing them to manage their caseloads more effectively and prioritise patients who need urgent attention.

Commercial model (Business Case)

There were an estimated 3.8 million patients with a wound managed by the NHS in 2017/2018. Annual levels of resource use attributable to wound management included 54.4 million district/community nurse visits, 53.6 million healthcare assistant visits and 28.1 million practice nurse visits. 

The annual NHS cost of wound management was £8.3 billion, of which £2.7 billion and £5.6 billion were associated with managing healed and unhealed wounds, respectively. Eighty-one per cent of the total annual NHS cost was incurred in the community. [[Cohort study evaluating the burden of wounds to the UK’s National Health Service in 2017/2018: update from 2012/2013 | BMJ Open]

Benefits

For patients, these adoptions prevent suffering and harm. Faster healing times enable a better quality of life and greater independence. 

Conversely, these adoptions contribute to avoiding harm, including progression of wounds in severity and chronicity that can lead to infections, permanent skin damage and amputations. Hospital admissions can therefore be avoided too, which can contribute to frailty, falls and infection risks.

For example, Swift Medical Technology evidenced a 27.7 day (46%) reduction in healing time of stage 3 and 4 pressure ulcers using their AI powered skin and wound solution. Evaluating the Efficacy and Financial Impacts of Integrating AI-Powered Skin and Wound Solution in Post-acute Care Skilled Nursing Facilities Over a Three-Year Period - Swift (swiftmedical.com)

Lessons Learnt 

Do:

• Focus on preventative measures: Key to realising the benefits is being able to support new patients to avoid chronic wounds. Make sure to plan the implementation to appropriately.
• Provide significant volumes of images for AI training: If developing your own AI model, you have access to a large and diverse dataset of wound images to improve accuracy and effectiveness in wound assessment and management.