Bromley Healthcare’s use of Minuteful for Wound, an AI-powered app developed with Healthy.io, is transforming community wound care across the borough, improving healing rates, reducing incidents and supporting teams to manage rising demand.
Wound care is one of the biggest pressures in community services, accounting for up to half of a community nurse’s workload. Nationally, chronic wound management is estimated to cost close to £10 billion a year. Locally, teams were seeing variation in practice, long waits for full assessment, and limited visibility of caseloads. These challenges affected patient outcomes, staff time and the ability to identify deterioration quickly.
Minuteful for Wound was introduced in 2023-24 to tackle these issues, offering digitised wound assessments, consistent measurements and real-time oversight. Developed with Healthy.io and co-designed with clinical teams, the app enables staff to scan wounds using a smartphone, generating 3D images and standardised documentation. A central dashboard supports specialist nurses to spot changes early, provide remote guidance and prioritise patients who need in-person review.
The programme forms part of Bromley Healthcare’s involvement in the National Wound Care Strategy Programme’s Test and Evaluate work.
The first pilot phase of the programme involved the Beckenham and Penge district nursing and podiatry team, and the programme was rolled out from there.
To date, teams have used the platform to manage 971 wounds for 678 patients, with 250 wounds healed since implementation. Eighty-five per cent of wounds now heal within 12 weeks, up from 71 per cent, and the average time from referral to full assessment has reduced from 78 days to 26.
Wound-related incidents have dropped by 64 per cent, and teams are seeing a 66 per cent reduction in in-person visits due to effective virtual oversight. Documentation time has halved.
The approach is also helping deliver better value for the local system, with £98,000 in direct financial savings, improved antimicrobial stewardship and a more efficient skill mix across teams.
One clinical nurse specialist said: “The app provides visibility and data to influence wider change, improve outcomes and produce cost savings as a result.”
A district nurse added: “I cannot begin to describe the time saved… Staff are able to escalate concerns, have a senior clinician review the wound photograph and wound history, and get feedback without waiting for a home visit.”
The programme’s success has been recognised nationally.
Bromley Healthcare, in partnership with Healthy.io, won the SEHTA 2024 Advances in Digital Healthcare Award, and the project was shortlisted for the 2024 HSJ Awards.