Application of Smartphone-based Teleconsultation System for Pressure Ulcer Management

Introduction:

The aim of this study lies in developing technology of the Store-and-forward Teleconsultation based on smartphone application “Wound Manager^®” and evaluates the usefulness for pressure ulcer. We assessed the feasibility and analyzed the treatment effects to confirm whether the Wound Manager^® works as the remote consultation solution for pressure ulcer management.

Methods:

We enrolled the 60 patients with pressure ulcer and compared Wound Manager^® with face-to-face counseling to prove the consistent rates of physician's assessment by PSST(Pressure sore status tool) standards and dressing recommendations. We analyzed the patient's pressure ulcer healing state by PSST total score after using smartphone application based remote consultation solution Wound Manager^®. Finally we assessed the user satisfaction grade by structured questionnaire.

Results:

We found out that more than 85 percent of the assessment's consistent rates in the total 13 PSST examinations except for the size and discordance rates of the dressing recommendations were 0 percent. The treatment through telecommunicable Wound Manager^® proved positive wound healing effect except for the 6 case of patients with septic condition. In user satisfaction survey, we found that more than 4 points on 5-point scale in the total 7 factors of satisfaction.

Conclusions:

Wound Manager^® suggests that the new effective teleconsultation solution based on iTunes^® for the remote patients and medical doctors. Furthermore, it provides rapid healing effect to pressure ulcer patients and high satisfaction, by complement of existing ineffective, unprofessional wound management. This study has minimized the level deviation of the medical treatment and offers standardized management to improve the quality of pressure ulcer care.