How Kent Imaging’s Revolutionary Tool is Transforming Health Care
“With Snapshot, there’s a better way to see below the surface, there’s a faster way, and it leads to better patient outcomes.” Kent Imaging CEO Pierre Lemire
Healthcare workers know all too well that time can mean the difference between a patient thriving or suffering unnecessarily. Kent Imaging's SnapshotNIR is making waves as a revolutionary tool, bringing cutting-edge technology to the forefront of medical diagnostics.
Disruption recently interviewed CEO Pierre Lemire, delving into the company’s groundbreaking medical technology and its profound impact in clinical settings.
Snapshot's technology, which uses different wavelengths of near-infrared light, has evolved from a cumbersome stand-based design in its earliest years to a lightweight handheld device. Its ingenuity lies in its ability to provide non-contact imaging, offering clinicians a universal tool to understand tissue viability with unprecedented speed and detail. As Lemire describes it, “time is tissue.”
Drawing a parallel with routine X-ray imaging for broken bones, Lemire points out a critical gap in many medical disciplines, particularly wound care. Unlike the common practice in broken bone cases, the ability to employ easily obtainable non-contact imaging for tissue assessment has long been lacking in the clinical setting. Snapshot aims to fill this void, providing clinicians with an imaging solution to better understand tissue health.
“With Snapshot, there’s a better way to see below the surface, there’s a faster way, and it leads to better patient outcomes,” Lemire says. “Most clinical settings can benefit from it.”
Snapshot’s major benefit shines when it’s used in time-sensitive situations, highlighting the role of the technology in helping clinicians quickly determine the severity of a wound and identify the best way to address it. It’s crucial in initial assessments particularly when it comes to wound care, where timely intervention can help prevent life-altering amputations. Snapshot’s ability to assess tissue oxygenation is beneficial in providing insight as to the best course of action and assessing therapeutic efficacy.
Snapshot also plays a proactive role by enabling preventative care and early disease assessment. Early detection of peripheral vascular diseases is crucial, Lemire notes. The screening capability developed by Kent Imaging identifies patients at risk early on, potentially saving lives and reducing the economic burden of advanced disease treatments.
Introducing a new and novel technology in clinical settings, where the risk threshold and stakes are higher, can sometimes be an uphill battle, Lemire notes. Regulatory hurdles and establishing reimbursement structures can often be a complex path to navigate. But Snapshot has proven its worth time and again, with this small Calgary company finding reach beyond Canada, becoming well established in the United States, and soon expecting to expand into Europe and Australia. This was enabled in part by sustained support from organizations like Alberta Innovates.
“Snapshot has incredible potential to revolutionize patient care by empowering healthcare practitioners to make informed decisions and contributing to cost savings in healthcare systems,” Lemire says.
Data from the Mercy Springfield Hospital Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center, which has adopted Snapshot, speaks for itself. Before adopting the technology, it recorded a 52 per cent healing rate, compared with 72 per cent after introducing Snapshot in 2022. Its amputation rate went from 12 per cent down to 7.4 per cent in the same time.
“We are seeing real quantitative improvements in the data,” Lemire says.
Ultimately, Snapshot can play a role in improving the healthcare experience both for patients, by limiting negative outcomes and complications, and for practitioners, by saving them time and money and providing an easy way to gather the information they need to make clinical decisions.
For Kent Imaging, Snapshot is more than just a medical innovation; it’s illuminating the path toward a brighter, healthier future, showcasing how a commitment to improving patient care can redefine standards in healthcare practice.
“Part of our objectives is not only to change outcomes for patients and deliver success, but also to help the broader ecosystem benefit from the trailblazing we are doing,” Lemire says. “We want to help drive the adoption of innovative technologies in this space.”