Top 10 Innovations in Podiatry 2022: Pedilay Med Foot Bandage from Pedilay Care

Addendum: Pedilay Care adds that the full product nomenclature is ‘Pedilay med bandage’ and that the bandage comes in 3 sizes: S, L, XL. It is packaged in boxes of 10 pieces.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Bhatia disclose that they are consultants for Pedilay.

Hello, my name is Alton Johnson. I'm currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Medicine Medical School here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a part of the Michigan Medicine Healthcare System here in Ann Arbor. So the product that we'll be discussing today is manufactured by a company called, Pedilay Care, which produces a product called, Pedilay med which is essentially a secondary dressing for the foot. It's very unique design where it has a custom-fitted, or custom-loaded, for foot sizes depending on the size. So it comes in small, medium, large, and extra-large. It's a very innovative product, and the fact that there is four different sizes that can fit to the foot for this secondary dressing.

So it's very almost unique, just specifically for the foot unlike a lot of the dressing we have on the market where we kind of crossover, from both upper extremity, lower extremity, or even some of the stuff we use in the foot, is abdominal, created. So this is specifically made for the foot. So it's actually with us in mind of those individuals who care for patient's feet. So the fact that it also has the three tabs that's on there, that's to secure the dressing essentially. So you can also have the patient or the user or their provider or the clinician take a look at the dressings in between visits without necessarily having to take down the entire dressing, to look for signs of infection or any drainage or any of those hallmarks of clinical indication for something that needs to be changed. And essentially also, they can also be reused, which is awesome about the dressing as well.

Unlike a lot of the dressings, especially when it comes to these cotton based dressings that we use, essentially if the dressing is not soiled, you can reuse it or have the patient reuse the dressing in between, especially for us that works in inpatient, where we're doing a lot of rounds and we have to take down dressings to show, especially if your fellows or your residents have to show you the dressing or show the attendant the dressing, where you don't have to have a lot of waste and turnover. You can essentially just put this back on similar to a sock, but it is disposable. So if it does become soiled, you can dispose of it. So I think that's very unique. And then I like the fact that it's easy to use for both the patients and for the users and support staff. So especially now, when we have a lot of turnover rate in healthcare, just a lot of training goes on.

This doesn't require much training, essentially, most can learn it on the first, second time using it, just essentially slip it on, close your tabs and that's it. So I've mentioned earlier if I've used this product going on eight or nine months now, and I've had very use cases for it. But one of the ones that I first wanted to mention that stand out is when I was training our nursing staff on how to use it. Essentially I had it as a trial and I just had the product and I said, "Hey, try this. I got this from this company based in Germany called, Pedilay Care. They said it's supposed to be very innovative and easy to use for the support staff based on some of the studies that they had." And I was like, "If we're interested, we'll try it out." So we tried it. Essentially after the first patient, the nurse came to me because I wasn't in the room when she put it on.

She's like, "Oh, I can figure it out." I didn't have to show her. She's like, I've been doing this for a while. I didn't have to show her how to actually put it on. She put it on and it was the correct way after, because I looked at the patients before they get discharged and she was just like, "Can we order a box of these like tomorrow?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'll talk to the supply leader." And essentially she was just excited that the fact that she didn't have to be in the room as long, especially when wound care centers, because this is in the wound care center, this particular situation. We see a lot of patients and a lot of different providers are there at the same time, because they have physical therapy, you have your general surgery, vascular surgery, infectious disease, have your Podiatry wound care specialist.

So they have different type of wounds that they're seeing and need to be able to get in and out to come help those other providers. And essentially she was done in half the time that she normally would be. And she was excited about that, and the patient was even more excited about that. That's the second part of the story, is the patient came in and he was excited because he was like, oh I could actually look at what's going on without actually taking down the dressing and causing any harm to myself. And also the fact that he could reuse it in between visits if he ever had to change anything. If when it wasn't soiled, he was excited about that. So that's where I pushed more forward trying to acquire it at our hospital system or in our wound care system at the time. And that's sort of how I launched using it here at Michigan Medicine.

Animesh Bhatia, DPM:
Hello, my name is Dr. Andy Bhatia. I am a Podiatrist from Columbus, Ohio. We've been in practice now for approximately 25 years, and we have a nice diverse practice that focuses on Podiatry and wound care. And so the product that I'm going to talk to you about today is called, Pedilay and it came my way approximately a year ago where I was contacted by this company out of the blue through referral from another doctor after the spring SAWC conference and said, "You should try this product out." And at the time the company was just trying to bring the product to the U.S. And it's a bandage that they said, it's a secondary bandage that would revolutionize the application of secondary dressing. So obviously I was intrigued and I saw the use of that beyond just wound care. Obviously as Podiatrists we use your standard of care currently, which is your acrylic slash gauze wraps, things like that on a regular basis, even not just for wound care. Post-op and things like that.

So I was intrigued, I received samples of the product and I was instantly drawn to its many benefits, which I will highlight shortly. And I was so excited by it that I asked them if they've done any studies or anything like that. And at that time they hadn't, so I proposed that I would be happy to do the pilot study for this product. I was just excited to do it, and long story short, it turns out that I did end up doing that. So we did the pilot study for the Pedilay and it was a user experience assessment. And really the purpose of this user assessment was to compare the current standard of care. And against this novel, secondary bandage was ready to use.

And the benefits that we were trying to see if it did really offer that in a larger scale, was ease of use, speed of application, does it improve efficiency? How does it protect the wound? Does it keep the primary dressing in place, right? Really important. What unique scissors, tape, things like that. These are the typical things you need when you do dressing changes. Does it maybe reduce the frequency of necessity of dressing changes? How is the comfort level? How does it fit? How is the sizing? So we took an eight week period and we distributed the product usage in across different caregivers, first of all, and in very different clinical settings. So we did our Podiatry offices, hospitals, which is primarily long term acute care hospitals.

And then we had patients using it at home as well. And then we had our nurse practitioners supply it in nursing homes. So that was the variable we added. And then we decided, well, we need to try it in different types of etiologies. So we had a 20% distribution among diabetic foot ulcers and surgical post-op wounds. We had pressure ulcers and we had venous ulcers and other etiologies. So we had a variety of different types of cases as well. We kind of distributed it that way. To summarize really quick, we found some amazing results that we were really pleased to discover and some things that we weren't even anticipating. To start out with, it was skin friendly. There was soft, covered the feet from the toe to the ankle, and it kept the primary dressing in place.

We found that across the caregiver spectrum, whether it was RNs, NPs, MAs in my office, the product was intuitive with just a brief explanation. They were able to pick out the right size. It comes in three different sizes. Based on the size of foot, they were able to pick out the right size with just a very short learning curve and then able to put this on. So I see a lot of potential for a future to use this product. I think if there's a sterile version that it would come out with it, it would have a great application in the OR. Even as a non-sterile product, could be used as the final layer. And I think it has potential to be used with negative pressure and even as compression wraps and as part of compression wrap and total contact casting.

And so we didn't have the time to look into all these things, but I think it certainly warrants that, and so it was very impactful. We are using now this product in our practice. I think Podiatrists should really give this a look. And I think it's a game changer in the world of secondary bandages. One of the questions I get asked frequently when I've mentioned this product is cost and we all have to be cognizant of that. And yes, the product is slightly more expensive than rolled gauze and the equivalence, however there's a far greater cost savings in all the other benefits. So at the end of the day, the net savings is actually a net savings in terms of reduced dressing changes, and keeping the primary dressing in place, less frequent dressing changes, and so on. So I think the cost will justify itself very quickly over a period of time.

Pedilay med, the only slip-on bandages that come ready for use for the foot & ankle. To view how to apply and learn more, please visit https://youtu.be/BiZsLPj5KYU.