Empowering Patients with Meaningful Data: The New Frontier in Wound Healing

Ben Magid, CEO Virtualcare

Every wound care provider has had patients who, despite all efforts, fail to improve, even when clinically, they should. It’s frustrating, challenging, heartbreaking, and a reality of the profession. It’s also one our industry works tirelessly to address. How can we find ways to better connect with patients? How can we get them to partner with us and collaborate in their health so they get better faster?

I’d like to share perspectives that offer meaningful pathways in the mission we all share to support patients with chronic wounds. It’s an approach that combines data, technology, and human touch, driving us toward better outcomes, enhanced quality of life, and greater efficiencies across the entire care continuum.

A Path Forward

Our company provides technology solutions to wound care providers at hospitals and healthcare districts throughout the South Pacific, primarily Australia and New Zealand. In my role, I get to hear incredible stories from some truly inspiring clinicians.

Learning about patients who have had chronic wounds for years always moves me. A wound care provider was recently telling me about a patient who was unable to wear shoes for years due to severe pain and ulceration on his feet. It got so bad that he couldn’t work or enjoy routine activities. It meant social isolation and strained relationships with his family that led him to often be surly with his providers. His journey is a stark reminder of not just the clinical but the emotional and psychological toll wounds can take.

And his is just one story. In our region, wound care providers travel from the city to the suburbs to remote areas that are almost impossible to reach. They treat everyone from young tech executives with surgical complications to older indigenous people with chronic and debilitating diseases like diabetes. “Every day is full of surprises; I never know what I’ll see or do next,” one provider told me.

However, some things remain the same no matter the patient or setting. When patients feel disconnected from their treatment process, they get discouraged because they don’t think their wound is healing or fear it’s getting worse. They may also disengage and become non-compliant or depressed, which further delays and complicates their healing. What’s the key to getting those patients better connected and informed?

As the global demand for better wound care grows and technologies like mobile wound care advance, the need to empower and connect with patients becomes increasingly crucial. Providers are extending their reach, going beyond hospitals to patients’ homes, senior living facilities, and skilled nursing centers, making wound care a more accessible and patient-centric service.

It’s why we need to educate patients and help them understand what is happening with their treatments—when things are working or not, how they are responding, what they can do to properly manage their care at home. The data must be meaningful and relevant to be acted upon. This way, patients become more involved in care as a vital step, a part of the care plan as crucial as the clinical treatment. The widespread effort helping patients go from disengaged to active participants in their healing process is not just a shift in practice; it’s a necessary evolution in wound care.

Data Transparency in Wound Care

Patient engagement, while a fundamental step, is just the beginning of the process to get patients more actively involved in care. Data transparency and more relevant insights into the healing process take patient engagement to the next level. In wound care, data transparency refers to the clear, accessible, and timely sharing of relevant clinical information with patients, empowering them to understand their wound status, treatment progress, and care plan. This includes providing updates on wound assessments, imaging results, and outcomes in an easy-to-understand format, which promotes informed decision-making by patients and active participation in their care.

Technology solutions are being more widely embraced globally and throughout our region as a way to provide data that brings relevant and meaningful insights, improves care, and better connects patients. This enables patients and providers to work closely together to monitor and manage wound healing, offering unprecedented involvement and transparency.  AI-powered digital wound care platforms are increasingly available on devices like cell phones and tablets, providing wound tracking through images and real-time progress charts, allowing patients and home-based providers to monitor healing collaboratively.

Challenges in Connecting with Wound Care Patients

Those kinds of initiatives are essential, as engaging patients, especially as connecting with those with conditions like diabetic foot ulcers can be challenging. These patients not only face pain, but many must deal with factors like food insecurity, unsafe living environments, lack of transportation, and other social drivers of health (SDOH) that can significantly impact outcomes. Many are older and may also have cognitive issues, meaning that loved ones and caregivers often become vital members of the care team and that they, too, need to be kept engaged (wound images help them stay more involved too).

Plus, many patients become reliant on medical intervention, which can diminish their personal involvement. “The doctor or nurse, or the drug they give me, will take care of that,” they think. Patients with diabetic foot ulcers, for instance, may struggle with low motivation to engage in the care process. They are in pain, may be unable to walk, and may feel anxiety in social situations. To effectively connect with patients, providers must address these psychological and social barriers, implementing strategies that resonate on a personal level and encourage active participation in their own care.

Part of a Bigger Picture

One of our clients in Australia, Pop-Up Health, is contracted to provide wound care to community patients associated with the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals in Australia.  They provide services under a shared care model. When patients are discharged – the Pop-Up team sees them in their homes, similar to many private practice providers in the U.S. The team is excited about the potential of digital solutions to foster active participation by visualizing progress and motivating patients who may otherwise believe their wounds aren’t healing.

They also note that wound care data enables informed care decisions, drives patient engagement, and alerts providers when interventions are needed. For instance, if a patient isn’t wearing compression stockings due to discomfort, providers can identify the issue and find alternative solutions. This approach reduces the need for in-person visits, allowing better use of staff time and lowering overall costs. Additionally, these insights can help us understand patient behaviors, allowing providers to gain insights into their needs and challenges, which can lead to more personalized and effective care plans. Whilst patient well-being is at the forefront of care, they have achieved significant improvements clinically, strategically, and economically.

The Data Patients Want to See

Exploring the importance of sharing patient data and insights leads to an important question: What do patients want to see? What will give them the data they need to become more engaged, involved, and adherent?

Most patients – and their loved ones – can and want access to much more than healthcare providers have shared in the past. Keep in mind that often, patients have wounds in areas they can’t see, making their families and loved ones a key part of their recovery. Also, seeing a digital image of their wound over time helps them get the full picture (pun intended) of their wound’s progress – it makes the healing process real. Digital images address both those needs. They can show:

• A clear look at the wound, an important factor for patients who have a wound on their back or areas where wounds may be hard to see on their own
• Healing progress over time, a huge factor for patients who might not think they are healing, showing them confirmation that they are
• Depth of the wound
• The potential presence of infection and other factors that may extend healing time, which providers can use to help patients better understand their treatment plan

The ability to provide images and graphs is a key feature of today’s technology. For example, they can be very helpful for patients in understanding the percentage of change in wound status. Some patients are visual, and others prefer data.  Those who prefer visual can look at images as discussed above with the percentage of change alongside. For those who might prefer a graph, outpatient visits allow patients to see their wound and healing status via graph, something many patients value and clinicians credit with furthering engagement.

Humanizing Healing Through Data

Wound tracking through images and real-time progress charts enables patients and home-based providers to monitor healing collaboratively. It is indeed a new frontier for wound care. Sharing wound care data and insights is not just about providing knowledge; it’s about empowering patients with the tools, knowledge, and confidence to actively participate in their care.

Better information and insights give people hope that they are on the path toward recovery and that their providers have the data they need to best manage their care. That can’t help but improve adherence to treatment and enthusiasm for programs. Plus, it’s a powerful example of how technology humanizes the experience of healing.

Whether working in a large hospital system or wound care clinic in the U.S. or for a healthcare district in Australia, there’s much happening in the wound care world to be proud of and embrace. We should all look forward to further expanding technologies that better engage and empower patients. Ultimately, these innovations will drive better outcomes and transform quality of life, helping patients and providers achieve meaningful, lasting improvements.