Carpenter Shaun, Rader Andrew
Department of Wound Medicine, MedCentris Wound Healing Institute, Hammond, USA.
Department of Podiatric Medicine, Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center, Jasper, USA.
Cureus. 2025 Jun 3;17(6):e85285. doi: 10.7759/cureus.85285. eCollection 2025 Jun.
Background Many wound care specialists use fluorescence imaging (FLI) to complement the assessment of clinical signs and symptoms in the detection of wound infections, providing clinical value to patient management and healthcare economic benefits. Objectives To assist other wound care practices in adopting FLI technology, we addressed four key questions related to the activities essential for successful implementation: (1) Who is responsible for each activity? (2) How long does the overall imaging procedure take? (3) How much time does each activity require? (4) What patient and wound variables might influence the time needed for FLI? Methodology To answer these questions, surveys were collected via Qualtrics from eight physicians representing unique practices who had been trained on MolecuLight FLI (Toronto, ON, Canada) and had between 0.5 and 5 years of real-world patient experience with the technology. This study employed a cross-sectional, electronic survey design to evaluate physicians' experiences with FLI in wound care. Results The FLI workflow can be divided into 10 activities. In all practices, physicians are responsible for educating patients and obtaining informed consent. In most practices, physicians are responsible for all other activities related to FLI. The overall procedure requires an average of 28.8 minutes of physician time for a single wound. Patient variables affect procedure time. Conclusions Clinical and economic benefits, including the ability to modify wound treatment plans and reduce costs associated with managing infection-related complications, can be achieved with fluorescence imaging (FLI) to detect wound infections. This requires a relatively small time investment from physicians and is supported in some practices by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs).
许多伤口护理专家使用荧光成像（FLI）来辅助评估伤口感染时的临床体征和症状，为患者管理提供临床价值并带来医疗经济效益。目的：为帮助其他伤口护理机构采用FLI技术，我们探讨了与成功实施该技术所需活动相关的四个关键问题：（1）每项活动由谁负责？（2）整个成像过程需要多长时间？（3）每项活动需要多少时间？（4）哪些患者和伤口变量可能会影响FLI所需的时间？方法：为回答这些问题，我们通过Qualtrics对八位代表不同机构的医生进行了调查，这些医生均接受过MolecuLight FLI（加拿大安大略省多伦多）培训，且在现实临床中使用该技术治疗患者的经验为0.5至5年。本研究采用横断面电子调查设计，以评估医生在伤口护理中使用FLI的经验。结果：FLI工作流程可分为10项活动。在所有机构中，医生负责对患者进行教育并获得知情同意。在大多数机构中，医生负责与FLI相关的所有其他活动。对于单个伤口，整个过程平均需要医生花费28.8分钟。患者变量会影响操作时间。结论：荧光成像（FLI）检测伤口感染可带来临床和经济效益，包括能够修改伤口治疗方案并降低与管理感染相关并发症相关的成本。这只需要医生投入相对较少的时间，并且在一些机构中由执业护士（NP）和医师助理（PA）提供支持。
