Israeli start-up launches app to monitor wounds
What if monitoring a wound could be as easy as taking a selfie?
With millions worldwide suffering in silence from chronic wound pain, Tel Avivbased medical start-up Healthy.io has developed a smartphone app that can help nurses and medical professionals quickly and effectively monitor such ailments.
According to Healthy.io’s US general manager, Paula LeClair, “chronic wounds are the source of pain for tens of millions around the world, and cost billions of dollars to care for... We’re launching a digital wound assessment and management service to equip clinicians with the tools they need to assess, track and heal chronic wounds.”
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, Healthy.io said, “chronic wounds are a significant burden to both patients and healthcare systems globally. In the UK, 2.2 million people suffer from chronic wounds, costing the National Health Service £5.3 billion, more than the cost of treating cancer.”
Moreover, in the US, 6.5 million people suffer from chronic wounds and complications, which costs more than $25 billion annually. “We know that today, nurses are on the frontlines of wound management but are still using tools that haven’t changed in decades – in some places, this includes a paper ruler,” the start-up said. “These measurements are difficult to share and tracking results over time is inconsistent. This can lead to incorrect treatment, prolonged healing times, and growing distress for patients.”
Healthy.io explained that its digital wound management solution is tackling these problems using a smartphone app together with two calibration stickers placed around a wound to track dimensions. “Nurses can now scan the wound and get measurements quickly and effectively,” the medical technology company said. “Our technology builds a 3D image, enabling a more comprehensive and accurate documentation.”
Healthy.io told the Post it measures wounds and captures standardized visual records over time, allowing to monitor a wound’s progression and reducing human error and discrepancies caused by subjective analysis and inaccurate measurement. “This solution is building on our experience as the category creators of smartphone urinalysis and creating clinical grade color recognition technology that is already being used by patients and leading health systems worldwide,” the start-up emphasized. “Applying our proven image and color recognition expertise positions us well to make a significant impact in the field of chronic wound care.”
LeClair said the app gives nurses the ability to “specify different qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the wound, such as the wound’s location and the patient’s level of pain.
“Using the app, nurses can also document the administered treatment plan, reference past treatment and normalize past photos, and create a report summarizing each wound’s progress over time,” she said. “This data is automatically uploaded to the clinical record so that all clinicians involved in the care of the patient can see it.”
Asked if the app was in operation for medical professionals, Healthy.io said that their product is [currently] being used at Care City and Modality Partnership’s Wokingham Medical Centre and at the North East London NHS Foundation Trust National Health Service Trust in Hawkwell Court in the UK. “We are also in discussions with several other commercial partners around the world,” the company said.
The medtech start-up stressed that, because they are a company that creates clinical grade technology, they “invest significant time in creating products that are evidence-based and regulatory compliant. Our wound product is [a] CE marked and successfully registered with the US Food and Drug Association.
Asked what’s in store for Healthy.io in 2020, the start-up said they “are confident 2020 will be a flagship year for us, as we expand our commercial activity to include digital wound care as well as smartphone powered urinalysis and deepen our activity in the US.”