AI tool aims to speed and standardize wound reporting

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and AI foundation KickstartAI are launching the development of the first Dutch AI model to generate wound reports from photos. This technology would help reduce healthcare administrative burden, saving nurses time and providing consistent, high-quality care.

An estimated 500,000 patients in the Netherlands experience (complex) wounds annually. Caring for these patients requires significant attention from nurses, not only during treatment but also in reporting. The current procedure is cumbersome: first, the nurse observes the wound, then takes a photo, manually uploads it to the electronic patient record (EPD), and then completes the TIME form.

Only later does the wound care nurse review the data to provide an assessment. "Nurses really experience this as an administrative burden," says Albert Simonse, a wound care nurse and Nursing Information Officer at the LUMC. "This time pressure also jeopardizes the continuity of wound care."

Simplifying wound reporting

The new model is poised to simplify the process by automatically generating part of the wound report from images. As a result, nurses would report more quickly and consistently, while improving the quality of wound recording. Currently, nurses often interpret wounds differently, reports are not always complete or comparable, and the quality of photographs varies considerably.

LUMC will partner with Kickstart AI in the months to come, a foundation dedicated to accelerating AI adoption in the Netherlands. The organization collaborates with businesses, governments, and civil society organizations to develop practical AI solutions for their most pressing challenges.

AI's societal impact

The goal is to have the model operational in the hospital within a year. After validation, the approach can also be applied outside the LUMC, for example, in collaborating centers such as Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.

"This collaboration perfectly illustrates what KickstartAI stands for: practical applications with social impact," says Anouk Wolters, AI Project Lead at KickstartAI. "Healthcare professionals and AI engineers are working together to create technology that truly makes a difference in daily practice."

The project stems from the National AI Challenge 2025, an initiative of KickstartAI and the AI Coalition for the Netherlands (AIC4NL). Leiden University Medical Center (through CaireLab) and the Dutch National Police won the challenge with the most socially relevant AI use cases.