ekareadmin, Author at eKare Inc.

Dec 10

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Identify Wound Etiology –  A Preliminary Study

Innovations in Wound Healing Annual Conference. Dec, 2018.

“The proposed hybrid model achieves an accuracy of 94 % in differentiating burn, pressure injury, venous ulcer, and diabetic wound. This early application of artificial intelligence on etiology identification demonstrates the potential of AI in wound care. Future work will focus on improving the robustness and generalizability of the DCN/DNN hybrid model with more images and data augmentation, including the use of infrared image, depth map, and other clinical input.”

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Nov 12

3-D Wound Scanner: A Novel, Effective, Reliable, and Convenient Tool for Measuring Scar Area

Burns Journal. Oct, 25, 2018 (epub ahead of print).

Highlights:
•Innovative use of portable 3D wound scanners to measure scar area;.
•Questioned the gold standard of the measurement of scar area, profile method, and showed this method is not suitable for measurement of hypertrophic scar area;
•Traditional methods are adequate for flat areas, however, errors are large in radial and angled areas. Scar was divided into three categories, flat, radial (cylindrical), and angled such as joints…

Jun 08

Artificial Intelligence Benefits & Applications in Healthcare

Artificial intelligence in medicine is a great idea that can greatly improve the patient-doctor communication and healthcare professionals. One of the greatest benefits of AI especially in technology is that it enhances the capacity to process & store large amounts of data. This process is a mainstreamed and standardized manner and translates that information into functional tools.

Artificial Intelligence, a great addition to the expertise of the human factor in healthcare

Artificial intelligence is of great importance in health care. It can collect data over time, access data stored in other computers and go over data written on the internet, online books and research notes in a matter of seconds, and make an educated decision based on all the data it’s been over.

When implementing new technology as a process in our practice many things can go wrong due to lack of knowledge or human error during the implementation phase of the technology. As much as AI as a new technology can be of benefit to healthcare providers it can also prove to be disruptive later down the line mainly due to human error in the past. Before we adopt any new process, or technology it’s important to fully understand it in order to avoid critical or even fatal mistakes.

Artificial Inteligence

To make AI as efficient and effective as possible in the future some steps should be taken:

AI should be used to assist healthcare givers, not always to fully automate the process.
The adopted platform should be fully understood by all who will be operating the AI system.
Engage and involve students in discussions and real-time practice with AI systems. The sooner they start practicing the better.
When implementing the system, have a professional oversee the whole procedure.

May 18

How AI Could Help Shape the Future of Medicine

Technology progresses so fast nowadays it’s hard to keep track. Sometimes it’s even hard to distinguish science fiction from reality. Many of the things we’re used to seeing only in Sci-Fi movies on our TV screen are now becoming a reality. One of the main factors technology is changing is employment and automation of jobs in different industries. Different jobs in different industries have different rates of automatability.

When it comes to the medical professions, the rate of automatability sits comfortably at 0.4. That means doctors and surgeons have a chance of 0.4% of being replaced by automation in the future. However, this is not to say that technological progress doesn’t affect the medical professions.

Performing heart surgeries, giving diagnosis etc. must have a certain percent of empathy for them. And that’s what makes the human factor in medicine crucial. Now let’s take a look at some ways AI will shape the future of medicine. Read More

Apr 19

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Medicine

Even though artificial intelligence has been around for a while, it’s just now that it’s being popularized and implemented in our everyday lives in every possible way. From smartphones with AI interfaces to self-driving cars, the benefits are clearly visible.

With all the noise surrounding artificial intelligence and the rising speculations that AI has the potential to evolve in a great danger to mankind, it’s easy to let our survival instincts kick in and discard AI as something bad and threatening. But is AI really pitting man against the machine?

parelax-acute-bg

I think medicine is the perfect example where the benefits of AI clearly shine over its possible future negative effects, mostly because even the steadiest hand can’t be as steady as the precisely accurate robots and extremely fine-tuned diagnostic algorithms to solve complex surgical and clinical problems. Read More

Apr 08

The Different Stages of Wound Healing

Different types of wounds take different time periods and different care procedures to fully heal but most of them go through similar or same healing stages. In general smaller wounds take less time to heal while larger and deeper wounds requiring more time and more care to fully heal. The whole healing process of the wound depends on many factors such as wound dressings, the attention and care you devote to the wound, the origin of the wound and so on.

eKare 3D Wound Imaging Read More

Apr 02

Exercises That Are Beneficial for Wound Care Patients

It’s safe to say that individuals seeking treatment for diabetic foot ulcers are not the most disciplined when it comes to lifestyle choices. The declining quality of life that affects many people with diabetes can be directly connected to the lack of exercise.

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Exercise not only helps your body stay more vital and healthy which can aid physically, but exercise is also important for the mental state of mind which again reflects on our physical body and health.

Also, exercise has proven to lower blood glucose levels which directly benefits patients with diabetes. However, exercise alone cannot solve the underlying problem. This takes more effort which includes lowering calories and adjusting your nutrition.

Mar 23

How Does Diabetes Affect Wound Healing?

Wounds or sores that take a longer time to heal can indicate an underlying disease such as diabetes, which has a direct impact on the body’s ability to heal wounds. Diabetes is a direct response to the organisms inability to produce or use insulin. Insulin is a hormone which has the function to turn glucose, or sugar, into energy. This has a direct impact on the body’s ability to heal wounds.

inSight for Wound Management

Wounds in patients with diabetes not only heal more slowly but have a potential to get worse more rapidly, so they require much more attention than a normal wound. There are several things that affect wound healing in a patient with diabetes which include:

Mar 09

5 Tips for Preventing Diabetic Foot Ulcers

If you have diabetes it’s crucial to have regular foot exams, at least every six months performed by a doctor or a foot care professional. Foot exams can often reveal lesions that haven’t completely healed or are infected.

prevent-diabetic

In order to be sure your feet are healthy you can do daily inspections at home by yourself.

Look for any signs of possible trouble such as bumps, bruises, sores, cracked skin, patches of thin or tiny skin. If there are any potential signs of trouble, immediately consult your healthcare professional.

Mar 03

Great news! We are now officially partnered with Premiere Inc.

We have great news! In order to provide you with a better service, we have partnered with Premiere Inc. Group purchasing organizations such as Premiere Inc. were created to help hospitals and other providers to pool their purchasing power to secure significant discounts on virtually all medical and other hospital supplies. Using the power of collaboration, hospitals, particularly small and rural, rely heavily on GPOs to provide economies of scale and labor savings, as well as providing other supply chain efficiencies, such as e-commerce systems, data analysis, benchmarking, and best practice sharing.

Premiere Inc. Partnership logo

eKare has been awarded a group purchasing agreement for Digital Wound Management System with Premier. Effective March 1st, 2018.

Digital Wound Management System is a new product category created by Premier. This contract allows Premier members to take advantage of special pricing and terms pre-negotiated for eKare’s inSight™ 3D Wound Imaging and Documentation system.

Premier is a leading healthcare improvement company, uniting an alliance of approximately 3,900 U.S. hospitals and 150,000 other providers to transform healthcare. With integrated data and analytics, collaboratives, supply chain solutions, and advisory and other services, Premier enables better care and outcomes at a lower cost.