WoundWiseIQ
Bringing Imaging Analytics to Wound Management

Each year more than 7 million people need chronic wound treatment which can last for months, sometimes years. Healthcare practitioners are diligent about measuring the wound accurately to determine if it is healing. Physicians evaluate how the wound has changed from one examination to the other in terms of color, depth, area, and shape of the wound’s edges. However, manual measurement and documentation are cumbersome and inconsistent. Research reports that out of $45 billion spent on treating chronic wounds in the US, $1.7 billion was incurred in the manual and time-intensive process of documenting the condition, healing progress and treatment of each wound. To address these issues, WoundWiseIQ brings image analytics that streamlines and automatically documents chronic wounds and their healing progress.As a patented mobile imaging and analytics software application, the solution captures wound data four times faster and with 96 percent accuracy compared to traditional and expensive camera methods.

Wound Care at Fingertips

Clients can simply download the HIPAA-compliant from the App Store to run on their iPhone or iPad. No other hardware devices are required.

“Clients can implement our solution within days with minimal upfront cost, utilizing mobile technology most patients, nurses, and physicians already have such as tablets and smartphones,” says Gary Ross, Founder & CEO of WoundWiseIQ.

The application allows practitioners to focus their device camera on the wound and capture wound measurements and tissue color with a few screen taps. With this data, they can document treatment changes and other key data in customizable fields. This information can be added to the patient’s record and viewed to assess the trending in wound area reduction, along with tissue color changes. “Unlike previously used cameras that were bulky, cumbersome, and costly, using smartphone cameras makes the process much more convenient, cost-effective, and opens up opportunities for mobile and remote wound management,” Ross said.

Chronic wounds, such as diabetic ulcers or bedsores, are not only excruciatingly painful but take years to heal. Compliance requires that wounds which are not healing (i.e., not reducing significantly in size over time) must have documented treatment plan changes. WoundWiseIQ’s patented algorithms can segment the wound image and automatically calculate actual size, along actual with tissue colors - elements that are still being manually measured and documented in many healthcare facilities.

Using this data, WoundWiseIQ’s HIPAA-compliant cloud-based subscription service calculates, trends, and enables communication of treatment within seconds, from virtually any location. This is particularly useful for patients living in rural areas that do not have easy access to wound care centers and may have to travel to get medication and treatment for their chronic wounds.

With WoundWiseIQ, patient costs and pains can be significantly reduced. WoundWiseIQ applies imaging analytics technology to chronic wound measurement and documentation to rapidly document wounds more consistently and accurately and to easily compare changes in area and wound appearance over time. This leads to improved patient outcomes. The system identifies, analyzes, and documents discrete elements required by CMS compliance for reimbursement to medical care providers and can reduce healthcare costs. Further, WoundWiseIQ enables clients to effectively gain control and visibility of data across multiple remote locations while improving risk management and audit performance. Healthcare organizations can build a stronger wound care program and reputation.

Instead of using bulky and costly cameras to document the progress of wound care, our solution uses smartphone cameras and an application that makes the process much more convenient and cost-effective for doctors and nurses, while improving treatment for patients

The Steering Force and the Future Plans

WoundWiseIQ has been awarded a comprehensive non-provisional utility patent with claims on the methodology used to develop a wound healing probability approach for wound image analysis. The company has taken the core patented algorithms and built software layers around it that outfit WoundWiseIQ with an easy-to-use customer interface and a feature-rich toolset that enables a new streamlined way to track of wound-healing and compliance.

In a key research study done at The Ohio State University (OSU), 76 percent of physicians and nurses reported a cost/ benefit advantage to utilizing WoundWise IQ technology while 55 percent were ready to replace their current approach. There is also a significant opportunity for WoundWise IQ to solve the “required documentation” requirement for medical service providers to receive reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as well as from private payers.

“There are major inefficiencies in the treatment of chronic wounds today. We are the fastest and most accurate wound measurement app. on the market, substantiated by our patented technology,” explains Ross.

The company’s success is attributed the team put together by Ross - a combination of wound care physicians, healthcare industry experts, and healthcare IT and business growth leaders, including the addition of Dr. John Phillip as the company’s Chief Innovation Officer in 2018. The team has launched hundreds of new products, Ross has managed software development teams successfully for the past 16 years and has proven success growing SaaS and subscription-based businesses.

Customers are using WoundWiseIQ in home settings, healthcare centers, nursing facilities, and wound care centers. The company’s HIPAA-compliant and FDA registered app is also being used by wound care product suppliers for the purpose of clinical trials. Vendors supplying wound care dressings and other wound healing products can introduce and increase their sales into the market with the help of WoundWiseIQ. The company is also partnering with electronic medical records (EMR) companies to capture wound data and load it into EMR systems. The company is also integrating telehealth software product that allows patients to communicate directly with their physicians, and an artificial intelligence software product that helps physicians quickly and accurately evaluate the severity of a burn wound.