LenexaCARE

Despite widespread recognition that pressure injuries are mostly preventable, they remain a devastating health problem, with more than 400,000 cases in Australia every year¹. Pressure injuries (or bed sores) can occur in patients after as little as one hour spent immobile on a surface, putting many patients in ICUs, surgeries, long-stay wards and aged-care facilities at risk. In Australia alone, pressure injuries cost our healthcare sector more than $9 billion every year¹. Early-stage pressure injuries are easy to miss, and the current methods of detection and patient care are subjective and often inaccurate.

The LenexaCARE solution is a world-first fabric-based sensor technology paired with AI software that monitors patient position and pressures in real-time to enable personalised pressure injury (or ‘bed sore’) prevention. The system provides patient-specific non-subjective data to guide clinicians and carers to deliver a higher quality of care, working to minimise patient suffering and to reduce the multi-billion-dollar healthcare burden associated with preventable pressure injuries.

Lenexa Medical approached D+I to support the development of a connected care solution to this problem that would empower clinicians to prevent healthcare acquired pressure injuries for patients and deliver a better standard of care. The system required the development of integrated technical textiles, electronics hardware, networking solutions, proprietary algorithms, and a highly usable interface for detecting & monitoring patient position, posture + presence in real-time. The solution would need to be compatible with existing hospital bed frames/mattresses, not add complexity to current workflows and integrate seamlessly with existing I.T. infrastructures. To ensure wide-spread adoption by healthcare providers the solution required exceptional accuracy, reliability, scalability, longevity + be delivered in a low cost packaged suite.

The LenexaCARE solution is an end-to-end patient centred pressure injury prevention and monitoring solution for hospitals and care facilities, with the power to monitor patient position, posture and presence — reducing pain, suffering and healthcare costs — empowering clinicians to deliver a better standard of care. LenexaCARE integrates with existing operational + technical infrastructures and is scalable from a small number of beds through to multi-ward + multi-level hospital applications.

LenexaCARE consists of four core elements: Pressure Sensing Mattress Cover, Databox, AI Algorithm + Patient Management Dashboard. The Pressure Sensing Cover converts a traditional hospital mattress into a personalised patient monitoring system — embedded inside the waterproof 'Smart Sheet' is a custom-made patented ultra-thin fabric-based pressure sensor technology. Pressure information is sent to the cloud via the connected Databox where it is processed by a proprietary AI software. Patient information is displayed in a glance-to-understand dashboard providing personalised offloading information + timings. The dashboard provides non-subjective patient data to guide clinicians and carers, in real-time — enabling staff to make data-driven decisions to aid in prioritisation of patient turns. All elements are compliant with all relevant safety + quality standards (ISO 13485:2016 Development) and have been constructed with materials that guarantee reliability over a long product lifetime.

D+I is proud to have been one of Lenexa's key development partners, designing electronics hardware, firmware, software on embedded Linux, GUI design, mechanical enclosure and waterproof + technical fabric sensor sheet design (under our ISO 13485:2016 certification). This combination of in-house expertise meant D+I was able to support Lenexa Medical from initial concept through to market-ready production — translating this idea into a commercial solution.

Learn More: Lenexa Medical