Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in the United States. More than 37 million Americans live with this disease. The disease is often accompanied by chronic wounds, as around a quarter of diabetes patients develop foot ulcers or other chronic wounds during their lifetime.
To improve chronic wound care for diabetics, Johns Hopkins Hospital partnered with Healthy.io, a startup founded in 2013. Healthy.io – based in Boston, London and Tel Aviv – offers smartphone-based technology for better wound care management.
The company’s wound care solution allows users to scan their chronic wound with a standard smartphone camera. Based on the scan, Healthy.io offers documentation and wound monitoring services.
“After each scan, the app uses proprietary color processing algorithms to normalize images captured under different lighting conditions. The app then runs a series of computer vision and deep learning algorithms to analyze the data and translate it into clinical results. This includes a 3D reconstruction of the wound area, a breakdown of the tissue and the exact dimensions of the wound, including width, length, depth and total wound area,” explained Geoff Martin, CEO of Healthy.io.
This data is stored on a portal along with the visual record of wound progression, facilitating collaboration between healthcare teams, he added. Specialists can then access this digital wound analysis remotely, which can help them make informed decisions and create personalized treatment plans.
The technology is designed to improve analysis accuracy and detect worsening wounds, prompting timely intervention by the care team, Martin said.
By leveraging the capabilities of smartphones, Healthy.io aims to overcome barriers such as limited access to care and transportation barriers while combating systemic health disparities and rising costs of care, he explained.
In the wound care space, Swift and Tissue Analytics are Healthy.io’s main competitors, Martin explained.
“Compared to our competitors, we offer more seamless collaboration as we work with providers and health systems and integrate with their existing systems, helping to alleviate traditional burdens on the system while improving access to care. This flexibility and commitment to care allows us to provide meaningful health insights around the world by empowering people to test at their own discretion,” he noted.
But Martin isn’t the only one who thinks Healthy.io’s technology is a winner. Dr. Caitlin Hicks, director of research at Johns Hopkins, said MedCity News that she learned about Healthy.io’s technology from a colleague and “was immediately impressed.”
Johns Hopkins began working with Healthy.io on a pragmatic effort about 18 months ago, she said. She expects the study to last about six months and ultimately aims to enroll 120 patients.
Half of patients undergo standard diabetic wound care, which means biweekly in-person clinic appointments, and the other half use Healthy.io’s app to monitor their wound, Dr. explained. Hiccup. Patients are admitted for three months or until the wound heals, whichever comes first.
With this study, Johns Hopkins aims to find out how patients can achieve better wound healing outcomes without the burden of frequent in-person visits, she noted.
“The main objective of the study is wound healing, and it is designed as a non-inferiority study, meaning we are trying to show that the results are relatively similar between the two groups.” We also assess patient satisfaction, quality of life and healthcare costs . In our opinion, the latter will be lower for patients who use the wound app, as they theoretically do not have to go to the clinic as often,” explained Dr. Hiccup.
Martin said he hopes the results of the collaboration will enrich research into digital approaches to treating diabetic wounds.
The initial phases of this trial have already shown promising results, he emphasized. For 36% of patients using Healthy.io, the platform resulted in significant clinical adjustments to their care plan, such as: B. implementing a different daily treatment plan or scheduling earlier clinic appointments.
Photo: Dmitrii_Guzhanin, Getty Images