Pressure injuries are a major risk in critical care environments, but when they are visible, they are much more difficult to treat. Bruin Biometrics has produced a device that it claims can prevent sores from developing in the first place.
The US-based company is already using its Provizio SEM (subepidermal moisture) scanner in the UK, and it is the first pressure ulcer prevention scanner to be added to the Department of Health and Human Services' medicines tariff. Social affairs, allowing him to pay for use of the device in patients' homes as well as in hospitals.
“Much scientific research has been devoted to the etiology and pathophysiology of pressure ulcers, as well as how and why they develop and the evolution of their pathological condition. » Biometrics Bruin CEO Martin Burns told Digital Health News in an interview.
He argues that it was previously generally accepted that pressure injuries were a normal part of treatment. “And, in fact, that’s not the normal treatment at all – it shouldn’t be.” »
In the UK, more than 700,000 people are affected by pressure sores each year, including 180,000 newly acquired ones, according to data from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. More than 60% of these injuries occur in people over 60 years old.
Most occur on bony parts of the body, such as the heels, elbows, hips and tailbone, according to the NHS. Pressure ulcers develop from focal edema or moisture beneath the skin and are more common in patients who are hospitalized or have mobility problems.
“If you catch it early enough and you can intervene properly, you can prevent the disease and the person doesn't have to develop what we call broken skin ulcers, which are the root cause of all the complexities,” he said. Burns said. “Once the skin breaks, you end up with a bacterial load, care costs skyrocket and pain levels increase.”
Other efforts to address the problem have focused on monitoring patients' positions. In November, Kepler Vision Technologies announced a brand new feature for its Night Nurse system that analyzes a patient's lying position to monitor when they need to be moved to help eliminate the risk of pressure sores.
Traditional methods of detecting patients with early-stage bedsores are almost hit or miss, Burns says, until the damage becomes visible to the naked eye. The Provizio SEM has a sensitivity of over 80% when pressure injuries are still at the deep tissue stage, helping nurses identify them and take corrective action, ensuring that injuries are less likely to progress.
Improving health and saving time in nursing
An unpublished study of 46 patients by registered nurses Veronica Pollard, Heather Hodgson and Arlene McNelis from the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Trust found that the SEM scanner reduced pressure and moisture damage and improved knowledge nurses in classification, prevention and management of pressure ulcers.
As a result, the need to reposition patients was reduced by 55%, freeing up nursing time. The study also found that the rate of pressure sores per 1,000 employed days decreased from 5.77 to 0.00 during the study period.
Other studies have also shown a decreased incidence of pressure sores following the use of this technology, Burns said. The use of the scanner also helps modernize the care pathway for wound management, he added.
The technology also promises to eliminate some of the racial inequities involved in diagnosing pressure ulcers. A separate study published in November in the Journal of Advanced Nursing found that Provizio SEM technology is effective in detecting pressure ulcers at an early stage in patients with darker skin, where visual observation is often less effective.
“The wonderful thing is that this is independent of skin tone, and the reason is that the pathophysiological elements of skin and tissue are overall, from what we can see in our data, the same regardless of skin tone. or skin tone,” says Burns. “So the technology is diagnosing more of the right patients and the right analyses, rather than missing them, and it has equalized health disparities.”