We recently had the pleasure of speaking with WoundWiseIQ’s Chief Innovation Officer Dr. John Phillips. Along with being the CIO Dr. John Phillips is a cardiology and peripheral vascular interventionalist and has significant experience in wound care as it pertains to vascular causes. Dr. Phillips speaks nationally and internationally on peripheral arterial disease, and has authored numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals pertaining to his specialty.
What overall market trends or success factors do you see in regard to the direction of technology and wound healing?
Dr. Phillips: Ultimately wound healing is very much a longitudinal process. It is necessary to have the right group of physicians and care coordinators taking care of these patients and they have to be able to connect with each other in real time. When you have an application that allows patients to communicate with the physician and give real time feedback in respect to wound healing, ultimately I believe you are going to alter their wound healing for the better. Patients that I treat who get wounds are very sick and have a high mortality rate, so if we can save their foot, save their toe, save their leg – then those patients will do much better.
What compelled you to create an application that allows patients to securely share images of concerning skin conditions directly with their physician?
Dr. Phillips: I do interventional cardiology and a lot of wound care as well. I focus on patients that have wounds that don’t heal. Potentially some of the inability to heal is related to the lack of blood flow. Patients that come to see me need my help increasing their blood flow. Oftentimes, we start to appreciate how wounds are healing by looking at pictures of the wounds over a serial basis. It dawned on me that a patient would benefit from taking a picture and sending it to me rather than coming into the office and enduring the cost and inconvenience of travelling, so we started to develop a software application with the purpose of allowing patients to take pictures and keep us updated with how their wounds are healing, or notify us of any new wounds or unusual skin conditions.
As a physician who specializes in interventional cardiology and cardiovascular disease, how important do you think accurate wound measurement is?
Dr. Phillips: Wound measurement is very important. You need to know if the wound is getting better, because if you know the wound is getting better with what you’re doing, then you continue the treatment algorithm and plan that you have. If the wound is not getting better then you need to alter the treatment. How do you know the wound is getting better? You don’t unless you have an accurate measurement of the wound area. Part of what is required from a CMS reimbursement standpoint is the ability to document that a wound is improving, which is important to generating a successful practice.
Where do you see your product and its capabilities in terms of improving wound healing?
Dr. Phillips: In the digital world that we live in, we need to be pretty facile with bringing technology to the patient. Anytime we have the opportunity to bring a device to a patient that not only improves their healthcare but their quality of life and makes things easier for them, it is very beneficial.
As the Chief Innovation Officer you play a large role in WoundWiseIQ’s success. What are you most excited about when looking out over the next two years?
I hope that we can continue to develop our products and get them disseminated to the care providers that benefit from them. I think the potential is almost infinite, and we just need to continue getting customers involved with our team and products. It is going to take time and effort but with Gary’s leadership we will be able to ultimately improve patient care and help people live longer.
Dr. John A. Phillips, MD is a cardiology and peripheral vascular interventionalist in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Phillips speaks nationally and internationally on peripheral arterial disease, and has authored numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals pertaining to his specialty. Dr. Phillips has developed significant experience in wound care and has developed his own application that allows a patient to communicate – via the app – directly with a physician to share wound images and secure wound healing advice. Dr. Phillips is on the Advisory Board for wound care technology leader Med-Compliance IQ (www.medcomplianceiq.com), and functions as the company’s Chief Innovation Officer.
Learn more about one of the leading wound telehealth tools – WoundWiseIQ – and how you might become a customer and potentially a reseller of the product. Contact gary@medcomplianceiq.com, or ask for a meeting and demo here: https://woundwiseiq.com/schedule-demo/