(CR-040) Impact of Digital Wound Care Technology on Time to Heal for Pressure Injuries in Home Health: A Retrospective Study

Amy Cassata, RN, WCC – Vice President Clinical Success, Clinical Success, Swift Medical Inc.; Robert D. J. Fraser, RN, WCC – Director Clinical Success, Clinical Success, Western University; David Mannion, BA – Director Marketing Development, Marketing, Swift Medical Inc.; Kimberly Weatherly, RN – Certified Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurse, Skin and wound care, LHC

Introduction: Pressure Injuries (PI) is a significant global health problem with a prevalence range between 9.6% and 25%.1,2 Yet, PI healing time is underreported, with no standardized expectations for healing or treatment time.1 Digital wound tools provide a model for practice improvement where artificial intelligence enables standardized wound assessment.



So, leveraging a large, clinically calibrated wound database, this study aimed to understand PI time to heal by stage in home health agencies (HHAs) and evaluate the relationship between the initial size of the PI area and average days to heal.



Methods: A retrospective study used a subset of anonymous clinical data from a digital wound care technology provider's database, using PI assessed between Jan- July 31, 2022. Data was collected from 48 different HHAs across the US. PI was considered healed when area measurements recorded 0 and tissue was epithelized.

Results: 7,460 PI wounds were included. Of those, 9% were stage 1, 43% were stage 2, 18% were stage 3, 8% were stage 4, and 22% were unstageable. Overall, 27.5% (n=2055) PI healed during the study- with a median time of 28 days. About 55% of stage 2 healed, and the average time to heal was 26 days.



Kaplan-Meier survival results showed that PIs, stage 2 with an initial surface area of < 1cm2 was significantly associated with the likelihood of faster healing with a median of 11 days (95% CI, 8.5-11.7 days) compared to those with 1-4 cm2 and >4 cm2, which recorded 21(95%CI, 18.7- 25.3) and 25 (95% CI, 22.6- 27.4) median days to heal, respectively (P< 0.001).

Discussion: PI's with initial smaller size were associated with shorter healing time. Based on the available medical literature,3 the median days to heal for < 1 cm2 was 67% faster, for 1-4cm2 was 60% faster, and for > 4 cm2 was 66% faster. Thus, adopting digital wound care technology that supports the accurate assessment, proper staging, and documentation of wounds improves the quality of care and optimizes wound healing.