How to Measure a Wound With Your Phone in Under a Minute

Wound measurement is the number one thing surveyors, payers, and healing-trajectory reports care about — and the number one thing that gets fudged on paper. Here is a repeatable phone-based workflow you can run in under sixty seconds per wound.

Before you open the camera

• Confirm patient identity and consent in the chart.
• Debride or clean as clinically appropriate so the wound edge is visible.
• Position the limb so the wound plane faces the ceiling; gravity is your friend.
• Pick a background with contrast against the periwound skin.

The capture sequence

1. Open the encounter and tap the imaging tile. On-screen guidance shows the target distance range.
2. Hold the phone parallel to the wound plane. Point-and-capture imaging auto-fires when framing and distance are correct — you do not press a shutter.
3. Let the depth sensor sweep for a second or two. This is what builds the 3D reconstruction and preserves undermining and tunneling.
4. Review the auto-traced border. If the edge is off, drag a vertex to correct it; the area recalculates live.

After the shot

Length, width, surface area, and volume land in the chart with tissue-composition percentages (granulation, slough, eschar) already drafted. The image ships with timestamps, device metadata, and chain-of-custody fields intact — see audit-ready wound photo metadata for what auditors look for.

For the longer clinical walkthrough with troubleshooting tips, read how to measure a wound with your phone.