The burden is unequal
Chronic wounds disproportionately affect rural, remote and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where diabetes, cardiovascular and renal comorbidities run higher.
The challenge
Chronic wounds are a
silent system failure.
A chronic wound is a chronic disease. It deteriorates quietly, compounded by the comorbidities most patients carry, and the system around it is reactive, fragmented and stretched. The result is a burden that is measured, growing, and largely preventable. Here is the evidence.
Why current models fall short
Today's care is reactive and fragmented. IPCIUM changes the trajectory.
The current trajectory
Growing chronic disease
More complex wounds
Workforce pressure
Fragmented care
Delayed intervention
Poor outcomesHigher costs
IPCIUM changes the trajectory
Objective insight, earlier
Connected workflows
Specialist expertise, everywhere
Coordinated intervention
Continuous monitoring
Better outcomes for patientsLower costs for the system
Better outcomes for patients. Lower costs for the system.
The challenge
Most of the cost arrives after the damage is visible.
A chronic wound is not an event. It is a chronic disease, and like every chronic disease it deteriorates quietly, compounded by the comorbidities most patients carry. Much of the early damage is invisible to visual inspection, so care escalates only after a wound has declared itself, when it is hardest to heal and most expensive to treat. The pressures behind this are structural, and every provider recognises them:
- Growing chronic disease
- More complex wounds
- Workforce shortages & skill gaps
- Ageing populations
- Fragmented care & delayed intervention
- Rising costs & hospitalisations
Traditional models cannot keep up. In Australia, the burden is already measured:
~450,000
Australians living with a chronic wound at any given time
AMA 2023 · Monash 2025
A$3B+
Annual cost to the health system, around 2% of national health expenditure
McCosker et al 2019 · AMA 2023
12% to 30%
Severe pressure injuries are 12% of cases but 30% of total cost
Nghiem et al 2022
8x
A Stage 4 pressure injury costs around eight times a Stage 1 to treat (A$3,028 to A$24,771)
Nghiem et al 2022
What chronic wounds look like in Australia
Pressure injuries
Diabetic foot ulcers
Venous leg ulcers
Other
Pressure injuries, the largest single category. Diabetes sits underneath much of the wider burden.
Wound Practice & Research scoping review 2023
Assessment itself is biased
Visual assessment relies on detecting redness and colour change, which is less reliable on darker skin tones, raising the risk of late-stage diagnosis. Objective imaging does not depend on visible colour.
The system can't see itself
Australia lacks consistent national wound incidence data, a gap the AMA formally called out in 2023. What is not measured is under-recognised and under-resourced.
The demand for specialist care is growing faster than the availability of specialist clinicians.
No health system can hire its way out.
IPCIUM takes a different path: safely extending the reach of the expertise that already exists. Appropriately trained frontline staff capture objective clinical information at the point of care; that information is immediately available to registered nurses, wound specialists and medical practitioners through integrated workflows and telehealth.
Specialist-supported care travels to the patient, instead of the patient travelling to the specialist.