Wound measurements and healing trends
Length, width and depth, the wound bed, exudate and signs of infection, with a size-over-time chart for each wound.
Measuring a wound
On a clinical note, press Wound measurement. Choose the foot and where the wound is (the same sites as clinical photos), the date it was measured (today; change it to enter earlier measurements, for example from paper records), then:
- Size in millimetres: length (the longest), width (at right angles to it) and, if you measured it, depth. The area is length × width, shown as you type. Enter 0 × 0 when it has healed.
- Wound bed: how much is granulation, slough, necrosis (eschar) and epithelial tissue, in percentages (at most 100 together).
- Exudate: how much, and what it looks like.
- Signs of infection: tick what you see. Two or more of the five local signs (swelling, redness more than 0.5 cm around the wound, tenderness, warmth, pus) suggest infection, following the IWGDF/IDSA criteria; spreading redness or feeling unwell is flagged as more serious. It's a prompt, not a diagnosis.
- A photo of that site, and notes.
Press Save measurement. For several wounds, press Another wound.
The trend
Each wound shows its measurements over time: a line of its area by date, the trend (a dashed line) and, in words, whether it's getting smaller, about the same (within 10%) or bigger, and by how much. If after four weeks or more it isn't at least half the size it was, it says to review the treatment plan: a widely used sign that a wound, a diabetic foot ulcer especially, isn't on course to heal. Every date and size is also listed under the chart.
On the patient's record, Foot health → See changes over time shows every wound, with Compare photos of this site next to it.