Healing Chronic Wounds with Swift Medical

A journey of advancing wound care technology with key collaborations

Swift Medical, a digital health technology company innovating wound care management to improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes, has emerged as a significant healthcare innovator in North America. Today, the company’s technology is utilized by over 4,800 organizations across all 50 states in the U.S. and seven provinces in Canada.

With their industry-leading wound imaging technology, Swift Medical quickly gained traction with clinicians and industry leaders, including the U.S.-based CenterWell Home health and the University Health Network in Canada.

The company’s success is further highlighted by its 2023 funding grant through Ontario Centre of Innovation’s (OCI) ‘Innovating Digital Health Solutions Program,’ in support of its partnership with William Osler Hospital. Recently, Swift Medical also received a USD 8-million round of funding co-led by BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund and Virgo Investment Group. 

As Swift Medical gained recognition and support, the team continued to innovate their computer vision-driven technology and leveraged their data to develop AI-driven features such as AutoDepth^TM, SmartTissue^TM, HealingIndex^TM, and SmartProgress^TM. These technologies help automate wound assessments, which removes variability due to a lack of knowledge, skill, or experience in wound care among clinicians.

In pursuit of improving outcomes and alleviating the burden of chronic wounds, Swift Medical created the Swift Ray 1, a multispectral imaging device, which can allow clinicians to see what the naked eye cannot.

What is the Swift Ray 1?

The Swift Ray 1 is a sophisticated yet simple technology that captures thermography and bacterial fluorescence images which improve clinical assessments and provides more data to drive AI-based wound care algorithms.

These advanced wound images are important objective pieces of information that enable clinicians to identify signs of infection and wound healing progress. Their multispectral imaging technology combines multiple capabilities into a pocket-sized, user-friendly device, capable of providing key information to identify early signs of infection.

Advanced wound imaging is important for clinicians trying to uncover issues that can be subtle, or invisible to the naked eye, and even harder to detect on darker skin. This technology is also affordable and practical, enabling a broader range of clinicians to utilize it for enhanced health diagnostics.

Swift Medical’s journey with Innovation Factory

Swift Medical reached a critical point in its commercialization journey – developing a prototype that is primed for scalable manufacturing while integrating artificial intelligence and ensuring the high-quality performance of its multispectral digital skin and wound imaging device. In 2023, Swift Medical became a part of Innovation Factory’s Canadian MedTechAlliance (CAMEDA) program. 

The CAMEDA program is backed by Innovation Factory’s Southern Ontario Pharmaceutical & Health Innovation Ecosystem (SOPHIE) program, which supports collaborative initiatives for Ontario-based life science firms in the later stages of commercialization. SOPHIE is funded by a Government of Canada investment of more than $7 million, through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), to help technology companies develop, test, and commercialize innovative healthcare solutions.

With support from the CAMEDA program, Swift Medical accessed the expertise and facilities necessary to build up domestic manufacturing capabilities through a collaborative project with world-class organizations like Cortex Design.

Rob Fraser, the VP of Clinical Innovation at Swift Medical, updates, “We are about to enter the clinical and design validation phase for our second-generation device, to be followed by the production design engineering phase. We will be conducting electromagnetic compatibility prescan, mechanical and electrical component vendor selection and evaluation, assembly process design and validation, and production validation to ensure we can successfully manufacture with scale and quality.” 

A look into the future

Founded in 2015, Swift Medical began its journey when Justin Allport, Chief Engineer and Co-founder of Swift Medical, realized that computer vision and AI could highlight critical information about wounds, especially chronic wounds and related treatment. Understanding the need for technology that can accurately identify the formation of wounds and infections, he decided to put together a team and create Swift Medical.  

Currently, a 60-person team, Swift Medical was awarded ‘McKnight’s 2023 Gold Technology Partner of the Year’ by McKnight Long-Term Care News, the largest U.S. long-term care publication. Thinking of the future, Fraser adds, “We’re always excited to work with groups like Innovation Factory, OCI, and Hamilton Health Sciences because as a clinician, I want to see wound care significantly improved in Canada, despite the complexities.”

Swift Medical is on its way to changing the standard of wound care and address the burden faced by patients living with chronic wounds.