Hands-off Healing
Assessing in minutes
To use the device, a nurse logs into the PocketPC with a unique username and password, and enters the patient’s identity details before logging information about the specific wound to be measured, such as its location on the patient’s body.
When ready to proceed, the nurse activates the camera unit and the two lasers illuminate the skin around the wound to help to align it with the camera. The illumination also helps to normalise the colour balance to correct for ambient lighting. Two images are usually taken – one for the wound’s area and one for its depth.
The nurse determines the extent of the wound by drawing around the outline of the wound image on the computer screen using a stylus. The program measures the superficial extent of the wound and its depth, graphs the average maximum depth of the wound on the screen almost instantaneously, and compares the current image with earlier ones to graphically show the wound’s healing progress. The nurse can add other relevant details about the physical appearance of the wound, such as the condition of the tissue around the margins, any exudate (discharge) that is present, pain reported by the patient and any signs of infection.
A nurse can complete an assessment in just a few minutes – all without touching the wound or causing discomfort to the patient. The SilhouetteMobile generates a report that is sent to the centralised database held in a SilhouetteCentral unit either within the institution or elsewhere. Because the units are portable they can be used by district nurses visiting patients in their own homes and information can be stored on the PocketPC for later download to the centralised database. Information held in a SilhouetteCentral unit can also be accessed via the Internet.
