The Missing Link in Chronic Wound Assessment and Documentation
To effectively assess and manage wounds, it’s important to keep track of how they’re healing.
Wound assessment and monitoring follow a general pathway of:
Often, the missing link is objective, reliable data on the chronic wound at baseline and during the standard of care. Objective data points related to the wound’s tissue viability and supporting diagnostic and clinical images give clinicians a view they didn’t have before—a look under the skin at what is contributing to an open, chronic wound.
Wound Assessment Imaging
The foundation of chronic wound assessment is first obtaining a thorough assessment to establish a baseline from which the clinician can then build a treatment plan. Visual inspection and physical examination, along with a substantive subjective account, are part of the fundamentals of wound assessment (1).
New assessment methods for wound imaging are used across wound care centers to provide objective data to support the clinical physical examination. Methods such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) are being used more commonly in conjunction with visual inspection, and are sometimes replacing other methods such as ABIs or TCOM, as the objective data and tissue assessment have been shown to be correlated in the research (2).
“Given the importance of good arterial supply and venous drainage of blood to and from wounds, various NIR-based techniques have been developed to measure local blood flow or perfusion.” (3)
Photo by MART PRODUCTION: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-holding-paper-and-pen-7088483/
How can SnapshotNIR help your documentation practices?
SnapshotNIR simplifies documentation and supplies photographic evidence for medical necessity.
It provides you with a portable assessment imaging tool that goes beyond simple photo documentation; SnapshotNIR can demonstrate insights into the microvascular status of the chronic wound, and (very importantly) into the effectiveness of the patient’s plan of care.
SnapshotNIR can assist with supplying photographic evidence and diagnostic images for interventions and accurate, thorough documentation. These features reduce the administrative burden on practitioners, freeing up valuable time for patient interactions and direct patient care.
Why should you include diagnostic images in the patient's documentation for an assessment or follow-up?
Support medical necessity
Provide quality photographic evidence of pre- and post-debridement, as an adjunct to written documentation, to support the medical necessity of prolonged or repetitive debridement (4).
Bedside assessments with visual data help guide medically necessary interventions = Avoid over-treating and over-spending.
Fighting denied claims, paying for additional clinician time filling out paperwork and talking with payors takes away from the time they could be providing care to patients. There is a potential for hospitals with a lack of quality care to pay fines and lose reimbursement from Medicare (5).
Prove proper care
Provides photographic evidence of the wound’s status which allows for a correction to be made to the documentation and prevents potential accusations of improper care (6).
Improve standard of care = Hospitals can be proud of the care they provide.
Failing to provide proper care can cost hospitals up to $20 billion annually (7).
Accurate baseline wound assessment
Supports best-practice medical documentation by including photographic evidence of wound size, depth, and characteristics at baseline and follow-up (8).
Increase patient treatment adherence = Patients are happier with the results and outcomes.
SnapshotNIR works like a point-and-shoot camera providing the clinician with valuable data that directly impacts patient treatment plans and outcomes. Due to the ease of use of the device, SnapshotNIR gives the clinician the opportunity to learn the applications of the technology, and how to efficiently integrate and streamline it into their established processes.
“The importance of tracking the progress of wounds throughout the continuum of care is an extremely critical factor to reduce complications and improve outcomes for patients. Serial tracking with SnapshotNIR allows for a clear evaluation of the wound site and indicates improvements.” Dr. Brian D. Lepow, DPM, DABPM, FACPM
“When we can assess oxygenation improvement of advanced biologics using SnapshotNIR, it can help supply data that our wound healing algorithm is working. Patients are more engaged when they see the differences in the pictures that they might not be able to see by looking at the wound. Additionally, it can help provide data to insurance payors that the cost is worth the expense” Dr. Naz Wahab, MD, Wound Care Experts Specialty
About SnapshotNIR: SnapshotNIR, developed by Kent Imaging, is one such device using near-infrared spectroscopy to image tissue oxygenation and perfusion. SnapshotNIR is a lightweight, portable point-of-care imaging device with a user-friendly interface that can accurately measure tissue oxygenation at the microvascular level.
For a first-hand look at the advantages of NIRS technology in wound imaging, visit our webinars page, here.
References:
Nagle SM, Stevens KA, Wilbraham SC. Wound Assessment. [Updated 2023 Jun 26]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482198/
Bowen, R.E., Treadwell, G.R.N., Goodwin, M.R.R.T. (2016). Correlation of Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Measurements of Tissue Oxygen Saturation with Transcutaneous pO2 in Patients with Chronic Wounds. SM Vasc Med; 1(2): 1006.
Sowa MG, Kuo WC, Ko AC, Armstrong DG. Review of near-infrared methods for wound assessment. Journal of biomedical optics. 2016 Sep 1;21(9):091304-.
Noridian Healthcare Solutions, LLC. (2021). L38904 Wound and Ulcer Care.
Wound Source. (2021). Using wound photos to enhance your documentation. HMP Global Network; Wound Source Practice Accelerator. Retrieved July 17, 2024, from https://www.woundsource.com/blog/using-wound-photos-enhance-your-documentation
MAC. (2024). Billing and coding: Skin substitute grafts/cellular and tissue-based products for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers. MAC Multijurisdictional Draft Articles, 04/25/24.
Original article written on Jan 14, 2022 titled ‘Why is clinical photographic evidence key in the wound management process?’. Updated on Oct 30, 2024.Republished on Feb 7, 2025.