A privately owned Los Angeles-based device maker, Bruin Biometrics (BBI), is aiming its proprietary scanning technology at reducing the vexing problems of pressure ulcers in American healthcare institutions.
BBI is connecting its wireless pressure ulcer detector, the SEM Scanner, to a digital registry for pressure ulcers known as PUNT (Pressure Ulcer Notification Tool).
Each year 2.5 million Americans develop pressure ulcers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2014, pressure ulcers — also known as bedsores — cost the U.S. healthcare system more than $11 billion annually to treat. Pressure ulcers also contribute to more than 60,000 patient deaths every year, CDC data shows.
BBI has licensed the online PUNT, which was created by British nurse and wound expert Mark Collier and developed by United Lincolnshire Hospitals National Health Service Trust, one of the UK’s largest acute care hospital systems. BBI CEO Martin Burns said his company’s mission is to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. Burns said linking his company’s scanning device with PUNT improves patient care and helps to standardize interventions and treatment.
He said that since the Lincolnshire Trust incorporated PUNT into its pressure ulcer prevention protocols in 2011, it has reduced the incidence of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers by nearly 40 percent.
The SEM Scanner, which is in clinical studies at 10 U.S. sites awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, is able to detect pressure-induced tissue damage at least four days before visual signs of damage occur. It is not yet sold in the U.S., but has been tested and approved for use in the UK and Europe.
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Burns said PUNT will offer a single place to track and retrieve information on patient diagnosis, treatments and progress across care settings. He said the SEO Scanner and PUNT registry will improve pressure ulcer pain management by detecting ulcers sooner, developing personalized care plans, driving earlier intervention and building an online, accessible electronic platform that to collect and report population data and share evidence-based recommendations.
“It will be a single source for inputting all diagnostic and treatment data for pressure ulcers,” he said. “For clinicians, it will save time in record keeping and improve pressure ulcer management with greater efficiency by patient type, care setting and other factors. It will be an incredible advantage over what exists today.”
Burns said hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies are the likely U.S. markets for the products and that patients suffering hip fracture and urological procedures will benefit more. He pointed out that patients with dark skin die at a rate four times higher than lighter-skinned patients because their ulcers are frequently detected only after the skin breaks, exposing them to infections and further complications.
Burns described a real need within the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to detect pressure ulcers in military personnel and veterans with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
Burns said that BBI has two other diagnostic devices in the product pipeline. OrthoSonos is a noninvasive device that performs real-time orthopedic joint monitoring and can assess when implanted devices and prosthetics fail. The company’s PO2M is another device to monitor tissue oxygenation in real time for patients suffering other kinds of wounds, such as diabetic foot ulcers and burns.
BBI is an American-owned company headquartered in L.A. with European offices in Manchester, England, and production facilities in Sunnyvale, California. It licensed technology from the UCLA Wireless Health Institute and took its name from UCLA’s nickname, the Bruins.
Photo: Bruin Biometrics
