Project Overview
An NHS Community Trust providing district nursing to 84,000 patients wanted to build an AI-assisted wound asse...
Technology Stack
Compliance & Standards
The Challenge
An NHS Community Trust providing district nursing to 84,000 patients wanted to build an AI-assisted wound assessment platform — enabling community nurses to photograph wounds on mobile devices, with AI providing wound classification (healing trajectory, wound type, infection indicators), measurement from smartphone camera, and automated clinical outcome data for NHS SNOMED CT coding. MHRA Class IIa SaMD, IEC 62304, DCB0129, DTAC, NHS DSP Toolkit, UK GDPR Article 9, and WCAG 2.1 AA were mandatory. Budget: £90,000.
Our Approach
AI Wound Classification Model: Training dataset: 42,000 annotated wound images (pressure ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, surgical wounds, venous leg ulcers) — licensed from Tissue Analytics (US) + 8,000 NHS community nursing images under HRA ethics. Model: MobileNetV3 (optimised for mobile inference — runs on iPhone 12+/Android equivalent). Output: wound type (5 classes), healing trajectory (improving/static/deteriorating), infection probability (0–1), and area estimation from camera geometry. Inference: on-device (CoreML on iOS, TensorFlow Lite on Android) — no cloud round-trip required for clinical assessment. MHRA Class IIa SaMD Classification: MHRA SaMD classification: wound assessment tool that informs clinical decisions (not replaces) = Class IIa. Intended purpose limitation: AI provides wound classification for information — nurse makes clinical decision. MHRA Technical File: classification rationale, clinical evaluation report (systematic literature review of wound assessment AI performance: sensitivity/specificity for pressure ulcer detection), and post-market surveillance plan (6-month PMCF study). SNOMED CT Integration for Community Nursing: NHS SNOMED CT coding: wound assessment outcomes automatically coded to SNOMED CT wound care hierarchy. Community nursing system (SystmOne/EMIS Web) integration: FHIR R4 Observation resource with SNOMED CT code for wound type, healing status, and intervention. Automated clinical outcome data: wound healing trajectory tracked per patient — dashboard showing community nursing team wound care outcomes vs NHSE benchmarks. Mobile-First Clinical Workflow: React Native cross-platform (iOS + Android — NHS community nurses use both). Offline-first: complete wound assessment without network connectivity (common in community settings — homes, care homes without WiFi). Background sync: assessments queued locally → synced to server when connectivity restored. Camera API: guided photograph (alignment guide overlay, consistent lighting check, scale reference detection). WCAG 2.1 AA: mobile accessibility — voice-over testing on iOS for nurses with visual impairment.
The Results
MHRA SaMD Class IIa registered. DTAC approved all 5 domains. Platform live at 16 weeks, £82,000 — under budget. Wound assessment documentation time: 8.4 minutes → 3.1 minutes (nurse-reported). Healing trajectory accuracy (model vs expert nurse, 500 assessments): 89% agreement. Pressure ulcer detection sensitivity: 94% (above MHRA clinical evidence threshold). SNOMED CT coding: 97% automated (previously 34% manually coded). NHS PMCF study: ongoing.
“89% agreement between AI and expert nurse for wound trajectory. 94% pressure ulcer detection sensitivity — that meets our MHRA clinical evidence threshold. Assessment documentation from 8.4 minutes to 3.1 minutes — across 180 community nurses, that is significant time returned to direct patient care. SNOMED CT automated from 34% to 97% — the CCG now has the clinical outcome data for the first time." — Director of Nursing, NHS Community Trust (name withheld)”
Project Details
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