What You Should Know:
- Healthy.io, the global leader in transforming the smartphone camera into a medical device, is launching a groundbreaking program utilizing smartphone-based technology to improve wound care management for patients suffering from chronic diabetic wounds.
- This pilot program expands access to Healthy.io’s Minuteful for Wound solution to patients in the division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy department at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Utilizing New Patient-Facing Technology to Improve Wound Care Management
The CDC reports that over 37.3 million Americans have diabetes, with an additional 96 million having prediabetes. Diabetes often leads to chronic wounds, affecting 19-33% of diabetic patients, such as diabetic foot ulcers (DFU). To address this, a collaborative effort introduced the Minuteful for Wound app, allowing patients to scan wounds at home via smartphones. This enables real-time remote monitoring by care teams, preventing severe wound deterioration and improving outcomes. A pilot program showed promising results, with 36% of patients experiencing changes to wound management, and 94% finding the system beneficial, reducing in-person appointments and enhancing continuity of care.
This program highlighted the significance of prompt intervention for limb preservation, particularly for patients at risk of amputation treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital Diabetic Vascular Clinic. Notably, proactive use of the Minuteful for Wound app by a patient, combined with remote wound status review by clinicians using the Minuteful for Wound portal, facilitated timely interventions to preserve limbs.
This pilot marks the first comprehensive study of a digitized patient-facing wound care application without nurse intervention, conducted through a two-arm comparison study. Despite increased interest in telemedicine post-COVID-19, there is limited research on the impact of patient-centered technologies on wound care. Previous studies on remote chronic wound monitoring typically involved a trained nurse mediating telemedicine communication between patients and physicians. Thanks to this collaboration, the pilot evaluates the quality of care when patients and caregivers share responsibility for capturing and submitting remote wound scans.
Encouraging results from the initial phase of the pragmatic trial have prompted a larger follow-up study across multiple locations in the USA and Canada. This study aims to compare the efficacy of remote wound app monitoring versus traditional in-person clinic visits for treating lower extremity wounds.
“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Johns Hopkins to utilize this innovative technology, which empowers patients and their caregivers to take an active role in their wound care management,” said Geoff Martin, CEO of Healthy.io. “This new patient-centered technology offers a convenient, precise, and reliable solution for early detection and intervention, ultimately improving the patient outcomes and saving significant costs.”
