An innovative multi-system IT platform to improve outcomes and reduce costs in the management of complex wounds in the community

"Complex wounds are a major worldwide issue, in the UK we estimate that almost 1.5 per 1000 people will have a complex wound at any time. These wounds are open, often large, painful and at risk of infection, which can result in amputations and sometimes death. People with complex wounds require extensive contact with the NHS, imposing a substantial economic burden. Care is mainly delivered in community, where there have been significant staffing cuts and where IT support is poor.

The consortium of Medical Data Solutions and Services (Project leader, specialising in mHealth Solutions), Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (delivery of complex wound care services) and The University of Manchester (expertise in conduct of epidemiological and clinical and cost evaluation using routine data in complex wounds) have come together to exploit this significant opportunity.

The project aim is to support healthcare professionals and patients to improve the care, outcomes and costs of complex wound care, via the use of MDSAS's innovative IT systems for patient management, collection of high quality data and image capture through mobile devices.

MDSAS's ERIC (Electronic Referral Integrated Care) system transforms care delivery. It collects data, integrates with NHS networks and systems, incorporates images, and has functionality which facilitates remote management, early intervention, triage and escalation of care in accordance with care pathways, whilst building a crucial evidence base for outcome evaluation.

MDSAS's SiD App (Secure Image Data) allows secure, practical capture of images (using mobile devices) by clinicians and patients which automatically integrate with the ERIC system to support ongoing assessment.

ERIC and SiD (including image quality) are used in secondary care and we want to expand and evaluate systems into community care - a complex area. There is currently no similar system being used as part of nurse-led community care.

Use of these systems will make major contributions to wound care, giving health care professionals: better understanding of patient's wound trajectories; enabling patients to be involved in their care, permitting early intervention and rapid referral, escalation of care and remote specialist consultation pathways via use of wound images, and ability to rapidly explore activity and outcomes in collaboration with statisticians and epidemiologists at The University of Manchester.

This initiative could lead to potential annual savings of £250M for the UK health industry, based on a 5% improvement in management of wound care. If successful, market entry for the application will be in 2020\."

November 2020 addendum

Requested change:
We are requesting one change to our proposed work. We would like to include an additional piece of work, which was not detailed in the original bid. We are not requesting further funding but will use current underspend without reallocation. The proposed work will run alongside other work and does not replace any of our original aims.

We would like to employ a researcher for 6 months to undertake a scoping review to map current research evidence on the Use of digital information and communication technologies in wound care. The specific research questions this work would address are:

• What digital health and communication technologies have been developed for use in wound care?
• Has the development of digital health and communication technologies ensured credibility and acceptability with end user groups e.g. has development been supported by approaches such as co-production, user engagement, user experience?
• How have digital health technologies in wound care been evaluated?
• How have digital health technologies in wound care been implemented?

The work would be co-ordinated by the University of Manchester who have experience of conducting these types of scoping reviews.