Calgary-based company Kent Imaging has developed an innovative new hand-held imaging device that is making waves in the digital health era.
Instead of relying on X-rays or ultrasounds, this imaging device uses wavelengths of light to assess whether patients have enough oxygen in their blood.
“If you have a wound that’s not healing, you want to find out why. The first thing you check is, does it have enough oxygen?” explained Kent Imaging CEO Pierre Lemire.
Before Kent Imaging created the technology – dubbed “Snapshot N-I-R” – there was no previous device that could measure oxygen this way. The company is being heralded as a trailblazer in the digital health era as the device is changing practices for surgery.
The company said the device is changing surgery and chronic wound practices.
“When it comes to wound care… a lot of times people don’t understand what’s actually causing wounds to heal,” Lemire said.
The device is also providing practitioners with insight they never had before and allows patients to better understand their conditions.
Company vice-president of global marketing Sandra Jenks said this technology is making ripples in the industry.
“It is a game changer. In a couple of seconds, you get your result,” she added.
Alberta Innovates has been working with Kent Imaging for more than 10 years, since the company had “zero employees on the books” and just a “couple of people on contract,” according to Bindi Ferguson, director of commercialization for Alberta Innovates.
Ferguson said what makes this local success story even sweeter is that Kent Imaging is improving patients’ outcomes with a product that was researched, developed and built right here in Calgary.
“Look at the now,” she said. “Their product is reaching millions of people around the world and reducing amputations and increasing their wound healing.”
The Snapshot N-I-R is being used mainly in the States and is now popping up in Canada and Australia while it waits for approval in the European market.
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