Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, which specialises in cardiothoracic surgery, has rolled-out Isla’s visual technology to support post-surgical wound care.
The health tech company’s platform will now be used on more of the hospital’s wards, following a three-month pilot. Use of the platform involves photos being taken of patients’ wounds at discharge, with a wound assessment follow-up 15 and 30 days later.
The purpose of the project was to provide patients with a better quality of information at discharge, and to offer improved monitoring and surgical site surveillance, as well as to reduce staff’s reliance on manual processes.
Isla’s roll-out at the hospital will also focus on infection prevention, it says, as part of a ‘structured approach to discharging patients from surgical wards’. After capturing an image of a patient’s wound at the discharge point, and with patients given advice to help their recovery, the platform will allow users to submit photos of their wounds and wound assessment forms, in a secure way.
It’s hoped this will enable the wound management team at LHCH to ‘identify signs of infection early when the chances of successful intervention are at their highest’.
Speaking of the work so far, Julie Tyrer, Tissue Viability Nurse Consultant at LHCH, said: “After completing a successful pilot study of Isla to support photo at discharge, we are excited about the potential of Isla across post-surgical care. Photo at discharge supports earlier detection of possible surgical site infections, which can help reduce the severity and duration of infection and prevent hospital readmissions. We can now see potential for Isla to be used for proactive real-time surgical wound surveillance, identifying patients who may have infected wounds or other wound healing problems.”
“We will be able to offer patients timely review, remote or face to face, and appropriate advice or treatment. This can get patients’ wounds moving in the right direction, avoiding other wound complications in the future. We believe Isla will improve the quality of information about wound care which is provided to patients at discharge. It will allow us to promote better outcomes and experiences for patients,” Julie added.
Just last month, in September 2021, HTN also reported on the integration of the breast cancer risk detector – the CanRisk programme – into Isla’s visual care record. Earlier this year, we also spoke to the company’s co-founder, Peter Hansell, about the early days of the image sharing platform and plans for the future.
