For a number of years, we at SALSA have been discussing the philosophical similarities between what we have called “wound chemotherapy”, or the instillation of therapeutics into a wound by way of a NPWT device like the VAC, and the iPhone (or, perhaps more apropos, the iPad).
Imagine a day when you will be able to:
1. Take a product like the VAC that might have instillation capabilities
2. Use the on-screen touch pad to order an antimicrobial or pro-angiogenic or antiinflammatory “wound app” to be instilled by way of the device
3. Then have it delivered and attached that day from pharmacy.
This could create an entire community of third-party wound “app developers”– perhaps industry-academic collaboratives, perhaps others with an interest in the field– to, at low cost, generate potentially highly useful, highly consistent therapeutic deliverables to a wound.
This idea, coupled with internal wound diagnostics that provide theragnostic feedback to the doctor and nurse, gives us a very powerful wound ecosystem indeed.
Doesn’t this strike one as an entirely new opportunity for innovation and impact?
When this app store comes online at the end of the bed or at the nurse’s station, we’ll be the first in line.
-DGA
I think this Is entirely possible and should be the vision for wound care of the future. We share this vision and are building on it. Wound Theragnostics should track this approach in cancer therapy. I'm excited to see you advancing this dream. Harper