Helping Veterinary Practices Simplify Wound Management

This episode is sponsored by ScafiGen Advanced Structural Hydrogel

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Hey everyone, welcome to Products360. My name is Dr. Adam Christman, chief veterinary officer here at dvm360. We want to thank our friends at NovaQuis Animal Health and our friends at ScafiGen Advanced Structural Hydrogel, with board-certified veterinary surgeon [Steve Mehler, DVM, DACVS] in the house. Welcome, my friend.

Steve Mehler, DVM, DACVS: Thank you, sir.

Christman: Thanks for joining us. OK, we have this wonderful product here called ScafiGen. So, let's get into it. How does ScafiGen bridge the gap between liquid gels, flat sheets, and traditional honey?

Mehler: That's a great question. All of those are great options for treating wounds, but they all have their inadequacies, in my opinion. With a lot of the liquid gels that we use, if you've got a wound with a weird geometry or a lot of dead space, it's not going to stay where you put it. It tends to pool in one space. Honey, for instance, is very viscous when you put it on, but when it comes in contact with the wound and gets heated up by the dog or cat's body temperature, the viscosity changes. It becomes less, and it does the same thing. It kind of pools. And then you've got these sheets, which are great products, but now you've got to cut them to the shape of the wound. With some of those products, by cutting them, you actually destroy the whole point of the product, and then you've got product left over. So, what this product does is it conforms very nicely and very comfortably to all the geometries of every wound that you could imagine, and deals with the dead space that's present in a lot of these wounds that we have.

Christman: OK, let's take a look at it. We have quite a few bottles here: ones for in-clinic use, ones for the pet owners. How many applications do we get?

Mehler: I think for the in-clinic use, this larger bottle, you're going to get probably about 40 applications, and for the pet owner at home, probably closer to 20. Obviously, it depends on the wound size and depth of the wound.

Christman: I know we have a couple of use cases here. Let's pop them up and show you this first case. This one's a dog. What do we have here?

Mehler: Well, we've got a canine degloving injury of unknown duration and origin. Standard bandaging was discontinued with the application of ScafiGen. That left image is day 1 of ScafiGen treatment, and that last image was day 14. Look at that progress. It's incredible.

Christman: That's remarkable. It really is. It's amazing. OK, we also have cats. So, what about this case?

Mehler: Well, this case is a laceration of unknown origin, with a multimodality treatment approach: systemic antimicrobial therapy and topical ScafiGen applied twice a day. The pet parent was not able to manage any type of bandaging on this feline patient—we can all relate to that—but was able to apply ScafiGen with ease. Look what this did in 15 days. This is a massive amount of wound contraction for a cat in such a short period of time.

Christman: Especially for cats, we know that it takes a little longer for their wounds to heal

Mehler: Very different wound healing process.

Christman: Yes, absolutely, and that's remarkable, just from day 1 to day 15. Look at that. And we can't forget about horses. We also have a case here. Look at the difference on this one.

Mehler: Well, this is a traumatic facial injury, and obviously, due to the location of the wound, closure or bandaging is not really applicable here. So, standard wound debridement was followed by ScafiGen, applied once a day until this wound was healed. That's impressive. We all know horses form all that exuberant granulation tissue. It looks like this actually helped control some of that from happening.

Christman: Yeah, all within a month's time. Incredible. Fantastic. I know that I have friends who are using it on exotics and pocket pets, too.

Mehler: What a great use for it.

Christman: OK, how does this dual matrix drive home care compliance for uninterrupted wound management?

Mehler: Again, because of the versatility of this product, this little bottle goes home with the pet owner to apply at home, which really drives at-home compliance. Pet owners nowadays want to be involved with chronic wound management, with chronic disease management in general, and now they're a part of that wound care team. It gives them something to do besides just staring at a bandage, wondering if that wound is healing. It gives them skin in the game.

Christman: I see what you did there.

Mehler: Thank you. But they don't want to be bystanders anymore. They want to be participants, especially with wound care, I find.

Christman: Yeah, and now they are.

Mehler: And on top of that, with this type of product, you're getting fewer bandage changes, fewer veterinary clinic visits, and more money in the pet owner's pocket.

Christman: Love it. And why are veterinary practices calling ScafiGen a rare triple win? Let's take a look at this slide.

Mehler: You've got the patient, the practice, and the client. For the patient, this is faster healing with less pain and better outcomes through continuous 3-dimensional scaffolding support. Now, you talk about the practice. You've got that 473% return on pack investment, increased follow-up capture, and streamlined workflows. From the client perspective, you've got a simple home protocol, visible clinical results, and a happy, stress-free pet parent experience.

Christman: Yeah, happy client, happy life. I want to show you this slide, too, because we talk a lot about medical-grade honey and some other things that are out there in the market space. Take a look at this comparison, even just from a cost perspective. The cost per application is about 80 cents for ScafiGen. Even with medical-grade honey gel, you're looking at $3 to $5. And then you've got everything from recheck visits and bandaging. All those things come into play.

Mehler: Antibiotics.

Christman: Yeah, antibiotics. It certainly can add up. Even with the standard wound hydrogels, it's $1 to $2.50. And then there's the pet parent ease you were just talking about, how easy it is for them to apply. The bottle you just saw is very easy to squeeze, with that twist-lock applicator that you see, and it can—

Mehler: Comfortable for the patient, comfortable for them, without worrying about hurting their pet.

Christman: Absolutely, for any geometry that we see. So, when a veterinary hospital buys a box of ScafiGen, what does that look like?

Mehler: Well, they're going to get the box, and inside that box, they're going to get 1 larger bottle for in-clinic use and 10 of these smaller to-go-home bottles for the pet owner to use at home.

Christman: Excellent. And to the [clinics] out there, you've got to educate clients to take before-and-after photos. It goes a long way. You can actually submit them on ScafiGen.com, because it really helps all of us in the profession to see what before-and-after photos look like when we're using ScafiGen. So, where can we learn more and where can we get it?

Mehler: Well, we can get this product through distributors, but also directly from their website, ScafiGen.com, right?

Christman: Yep, I'm going to put the website right here for you to take a look at. I think it's a great tool to add to that tool belt when we're looking at all the things for wound management.

Mehler: Couldn't agree with you more.

Christman: Dr Steve Mehler, thank you so much for joining us.

Mehler: Thank you.

Christman: And thank you for tuning in to Products 360.