Impact médico-économique de la télésurveillance Des Plaies Chroniques Avec Pixacare

Medico-Economic Impact of Telemonitoring Chronic Wounds With Pixacare

The healing of chronic wounds extends over several months and accounts for 3% of the healthcare budget. Care networks capable of managing chronic wounds are heterogeneous, insufficient, and poorly coordinated across the country.

The key levers identified to reduce the costs of chronic wound care are: reducing the number of consultations, shortening healing time, decreasing the weekly frequency of care, and enabling early management of complications through an alert system.

The Ministry of Health now aims to roll out telemonitoring into mainstream practice and to expand new telemonitoring structures to benefit new patients and new pathologies.

A review of the literature on telemedicine in general reveals numerous indicators confirming the strong potential of telemonitoring for chronic wounds to improve care efficiency.

It would allow specialized remote follow-up without adding workload for caregivers while reducing the number of in-person consultations. This expert oversight could lead to better-adapted treatments, resulting in faster healing and a reduced frequency of care.

Adverse developments and complications could also be detected and managed early through an alert system.

No controlled study using a digital tool with an alert system currently undergoing CE class IIa marking has yet effectively assessed the organizational and medical benefits of such telemonitoring for the management of chronic wounds. This is the objective of this research.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adult patient aged over 18 years
• Suffering from a single chronic wound, meaning a wound of any origin evolving for more than 6 weeks (diabetic foot ulcer, leg ulcer, or pressure ulcer) Patient seen in a specialized consultation at Lille University Hospital (CHU de Lille) for wound management (Diabetology Department, Plastic Surgery Department)
• A home-based wound-care protocol planned at the time of inclusion
• Patients owning a smartphone or a tablet at home
• Patient willing to comply with all study procedures and duration
• Patient who has provided written informed consent to participate in the study
• Patient covered by national health insurance

Exclusion Criteria:

• Minor patient
• Pregnant woman
• Patient hospitalized at the time of inclusion (except for home hospitalization, HAD)
• Multiple wounds
• Wound not appearing flat in the photograph
• A home nurse (RN) who is already following a patient from one study group may not follow another patient from the other group (control or telemonitoring) Inability to receive informed information, inability to participate in the full duration of the study, lack of health insurance coverage, refusal to sign the consent form
• Patient under guardianship or curatorship