(CS-133) Making a Difference in Patient Engagement & Wound Outcomes with Innovative "Point of Care" Imaging in the Mobile Wound Care Setting.

Christina Asher, MSN FNP- C APRN; Stephen Bufano, RN, BSN, CSWD-C, BASW; Nicole Curtis, RN BS CSWD-C; Amber Gephart, MSN FNP- C APRN; Anne Jetton, MSN, APRN, AGPC-C; Audrey Moyer-Harris, BSN RN MBA CWS – Heal Precisely; Patrick Reid, APRN; Eric Roberts, DPM DABFAS FACFAS; Yisel Ruiz, APRN

Introduction:

: Providing advanced wound healing in the mobile setting (patient's home) has many challenges of its own. However, over a short period of time this mobile advanced wound care program has evolved in many ways. They have quickly adapted to limited resources, long commutes between patients and early adoption of "Innovative” advanced adjunctive therapies and technologies. This includes incorporating "point of care" bacterial autofluorescence Imaging into their patients plan of care.

Methods:

Wound Care Providers have incorporated Fluorescence Imaging into their portfolio of innovative technologies to assess and manage patients with elevated bacteria bioburden levels greater than 10.4. Having "Real-Time" diagnostics allows the providers to make "Real-Time" decisions for their patients Plan of Care.

Results:

Retrospective Analysis includes over 1500 noncontact real-time fluorescence wound images for bacterial presence, location, and load, per session. Having technology at your fingertips gives the providers the opportunity to manage and/or adjusting patients plan of care, including monitoring for success of Cellular, Acellular and Matrix-Like Products (CAMPs). The ability of taking pre and post imaging and videos has allowed the provider to evaluate their plan of care at the bedside, providing them with the opportunity to finesse or complement their original plans of care and optimizing and accelerating healing. Providers are trained to interpret fluorescent images. Red fluorescence signals indicated the presence of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria at loads (above 10.4 colony forming units per gram) and cyan signals (bright white center and a green/blue halo indicates the presence of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa 10.4 DFU.

Discussion:

Improving the providers opportunity to assess and manage in "real-time". Giving the provider "point of care" diagnostics to assess and manage elevated bacteria loads in the wound/ulcer bed and peri-wound. These results are reflected in their wound healing outcomes in many ways including but not limited to increasing wound / ulcer healing rates, decreasing antibiotic prescribing, decreasing antimicrobial dressing cost, and even preventing readmission rates. Most importantly, improves the patient's engagement to their plan of care and over all improves their wound healing outcomes.