Certainty at the bedside: outpatient wound care with MESI mTABLET
A certified wound specialist, Nicole Meyer, works in outpatient care across Switzerland. Trained at the University Hospital Basel, she conducts home visits and manages a diverse caseload of chronic wounds, coordinating with hospital teams and primary care to ensure continuity of care.
The challenge
Before adopting MESI mTABLET ABI, assessments depended on clinical signs, such as cold skin and pallor, and checks of foot pulses, with handheld Doppler as the primary diagnostic option. These methods were largely operator-dependent and qualitative, often lacking a trace or value that can be shared across teams. Subtle changes can be hard to document, inter-rater variability is common, and time-pressured home visits make it difficult to capture a complete picture.
At a wound congress in Salzburg, Nicole trialled several options side by side and chose the MESI mTABLET for its suitability to mobile practice and patient comfort. The system provides objective, reproducible measurements with waveform quality indicators and colour-coded results that are easy to explain during the visit.
Implementation
The MESI mTABLET is used in the outpatient clinic and during home visits to screen for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and to monitor progress. Its compact form factor and quick setup fit space-limited home environments; automated cuffs improve tolerance compared with prolonged Doppler probing; and the on-screen documentation can be saved or shared to speed-up referrals and ensure consistent follow-ups.
More decisive referrals: Clear, objective readings replace ambiguity and support confident decision-making. When PAD is indicated, Nicole can initiate referral pathways immediately, with documentation that aligns clinicians across settings.
Faster (re)action: A red “PAD alert” prompted prioritization at Aarau Hospital, culminating in rapid surgery. The subsequent note and operative report from the senior physician confirmed that the referral was both timely and appropriate.
Patient engagement: On-screen waveforms and green/red indicators make results straightforward to interpret. Patients understand the finding, accept the plan more readily, and participate more actively in follow-up.
Prevention mindset: Bringing measurable vascular data into the home enables earlier intervention and helps prevent deterioration. This is particularly valuable for patients who are reluctant to attend clinic visits, ensuring concerns are addressed before they escalate.
Patient snapshot
A patient who habitually skipped vascular check-ups agreed to a home measurement. Using the MESI mTABLET, Nicole obtained objective measurements that showed moderately impaired perfusion in one leg. She documented the results on the tablet, attached them to the referral note, and adjusted the care plan. The device is simple to handle and fast to deploy in space-limited home settings: cuffs are applied in seconds, the software guides the sequence, and quality indicators confirm adequate signal without repeated probing.
Nicole believes that routine, objective arterial assessment in community care can meaningfully reduce amputations in diabetes and PAD by identifying risk earlier and streamlining referrals with shareable data. It also enables timely adjustments to wound care, based on reliable haemodynamic information.
