Patient at Home

Patients can use WoundFollowUp to send photos to a wound care expert

The problem: Patients at home, and the families caring for them, can benefit from the knowledge and advice of a wound care expert. But:

• After surgery, it can be hard to get in touch with the surgeon to discuss the wound and healing (how sore the wound is, what it looks like).
• It may be hard to get to the clinic on a regular basis to have a nurse check out other types of wounds (diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, etc).

The solution: WoundFollowUp can help patients get advice by sending photos of their wounds to their visiting nurse between visits or to a wound care nurse at their clinic or hospital.

• The visiting nurse can explain how to take photos of a wound, and how to send them.
• The patient must be registered with a clinic and have a patient identification (ID) for WoundFollowUp. Click on Patient Registration and ID button at the left.
• The wound care nurse at the clinic will review the photos and contact the patient or the visiting nurse with advice.
  
  Some clinics use WoundFollowUp as a way to monitor patient healing while keeping visits to the clinic to a minimum.

Ostomy pilot Trial

In a pilot trial we tested the usefulness and ease of use of WoundFollowUp with 8 stoma patients. They were all able to:
• take pictures of their ostomy either by cell phone or digital camera
• send the images by email or by the WoundFollowUp web-upload They were all able to do this without trouble and said that it would be very helpful to new ostomy patients.
  In the pilot trial, the nurse was not permitted to give medical advice, but the patients really liked her phone calls responding to the images they sent.

A photo can often add a lot of information about a wound, more than you can tell her in words over the phone. After you send the photo or photos, the nurse will call or email you with advice.