Lord of the Rings technology takes wound assessment into the digital age
21 August 2007
Lord of the Rings technology is being used in New Zealand hospitals and wound care clinics to track the progress of
wound healing.
The New Zealand company ARANZ Medical Limited has designed SilhouetteMobile which uses state-of-the-art digital
photography originally developed to help create the digital creatures in the New Zealand movie trilogy.
The innovation is a world first and provides accurate and detailed monitoring of wound healing. It means district
nurses, hospital staff and other health care professionals will no longer have to rely on inexact methods for assessing
the healing progress of ulcers and other skin wounds.
Easy to use and inexpensive, the small battery-powered device photographs skin wounds, calculates the wound area and
depth, and stores all the information on the palm-top computer. The resulting data tracks the healing progress of
individual wounds.
“SilhouetteMobile has many benefits including a greatly reduced risk of wound infection or damage because there is no
physical contact with the patient,” says Bruce Davey of ARANZ Medical Ltd.
“It is also easy to carry around between clinics or patients’ homes, and it can track progress of wounds through
consecutive patient visits, provides photographic documentation, and has facility for entering progress notes at the
bedside.”
SilhouetteMobile has been designed for use on a world-wide scale and has recently received pre-market approval from the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States. ARANZ Medical is now looking to market the device in New
Zealand and internationally.
SilhouetteMobile is a finalist in the 2007 New Zealand Health Innovation Awards (HIA) and will be competing against 21
other innovations, including five others from Canterbury.
The HIA, a joint endeavour of the Ministry of Health and ACC, were started in 2003 and recognise individuals and
organisations that have developed new and innovative approaches to delivering better health services.
This year’s HIA winners will be announced at the HIA expo and gala dinner held on 10 October at the Wellington Town
Hall.
Further information about the HIA is available online at http://www.healthinnovationawards.co.nz
ENDS