Transparent Wound Dressing Imaging With Overlay Capture Guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for monitoring wound healing after surgery rely heavily on trained health care professionals, creating a high workload, and patients are often unable to reliably capture and provide consistent digital images of transparent wound dressings due to varying acquisition conditions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that uses an imaging device with an overlay image to guide users in capturing digital images of transparent wound dressings, ensuring consistent acquisition conditions by superimposing visual indications for angle, distance, and size, allowing patients to reliably capture images that are suitable for medical analysis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If patients capture digital images of wound dressings without guidance, then patient participation in monitoring increases, but image quality and consistency deteriorate due to varying acquisition conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary application (mobile app) that mediates between the patient and the wound dressing imaging process. The app provides guided instructions, overlay images, and automated analysis tools that help patients capture consistent images without requiring medical expertise, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of patient participation and image quality consistency
Solution Approach 2:
The system standardizes imaging parameters (distance, angle, lighting, framing) by providing real-time feedback and guidance to patients. The application monitors and guides patients to maintain consistent acquisition parameters across multiple images, ensuring measurement precision while enabling easy patient participation
2Reliability
If health care professionals manually collect wound dressing images, then diagnostic quality is maintained, but workload increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables patients to perform self-service by capturing and uploading their own wound dressing images using their mobile devices. The application provides automated guidance and initial analysis, eliminating the need for healthcare professionals to manually collect images while maintaining diagnostic quality through standardized acquisition protocols
Solution Approach 2:
The application incorporates automated feedback mechanisms that analyze captured images in real-time, providing patients with guidance on whether the image quality meets diagnostic standards. This feedback loop ensures that patient-captured images maintain the same quality level as professionally captured images, reducing the need for manual review and re-capture
3Ease of operation
If acquisition conditions vary for successive images, then patient convenience increases, but comparability of images for monitoring evolution deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by providing patients with pre-configured guidance protocols before they capture images. The application establishes standard operating procedures for image acquisition (framing, lighting, distance) and guides patients through these protocols, ensuring consistent acquisition conditions while maintaining patient convenience through automated reminders and real-time feedback
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a method for assisting a user in capturing a digital image of a transparent wound dressing preferably for monitoring the healing process of a wound dressed with and visible through the transparent wound dressing, to a method for assisting a user in reviewing digital images of a transparent wound dressing, and to corresponding computer programs and computer readable media. Also, a system for assisting a first user in capturing a digital image of a transparent wound dressing and for assisting a second user in reviewing digital images of a transparent wound dressing is described. In order to enhance both user friendliness and reliability of the digital image acquisition, it is proposed to superimpose an overlay image with visual indications on the digital images currently obtained.