Precision Medical Devices, LLC
Advancing Digit Wound Care

Despite widespread innovation in the healthcare sector, there has been little advancement in digit wound care for decades. While most finger lacerations are relatively small, they remain time consuming and painful to treat; typically requiring painful injections and sutures. These injuries are also a common focus for risk managers, as nearly 25% of all emergency department claims are due to failure to diagnose a tendon or nerve injury, or a wound foreign body. This is exacerbated by the fact that fingers bleed profusely, making it difficult for providers to identify these injuries. While the standard of care is to explore these wounds in a bloodless field, many providers avoid traditional digit tourniquets that are makeshift, cumbersome and unsafe; ultimately proceeding without adequate hemostasis. Studies also show that suturing small finger lacerations increases pain, procedure time, and infection rate- without providing any clinical benefit. With over 15 million healthcare visits annually in the U.S. for finger lacerations, healthcare providers and administrators have been in search of a safer, more cost effective and efficient approach. Due to the development of a revolutionary device, the medical industry is all set to embrace a new way to treat these common injuries. The trailblazer in this path is Precision Medical Devices, LLC (PMD); the developers of the “T-RING”.

PMD, headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California, stepped into the healthcare market to offer its eponymous digit tourniquet T-RING to improve the safety and effectiveness of digit wound care. Dr. William Green, the President/CEO of PMD and co-inventor of the T-RING, recalls coming up with the concept of this unique digit tourniquet after learning of the unacceptable risks associated with traditional digit tourniquets. The T-RING is the world’s first one-size-fits-all digit tourniquet that immediately stops bleeding, while applying only a fraction of the pressure applied by all other available tourniquets. The risk of pressure related injury is significant, as noted by “Trauma & Emergency Care” (Elsevier, 2019): “Traditional methods of tourniquet application to digits (e.g. Surgical glove, Penrose drain tubing, Tourni-Cot) dramatically increasing the risk of neurovascular injury, which can be devastating for the patient.

Adopting Topical Laceration Closure™ is the simplest and most cost-effective way for facilities to immediately minimize risk, reduce costs, increase efficiency and improve patient satisfaction in a high volume, high risk area of medicine – the initial treatment of finger lacerations

The T-RING™ tourniquet is now used to replace these other methods.”

The T-RING’s effectiveness led PMD to develop the “Topical Laceration Closure™(TLC™) system—a faster, less painful and more cost-effective option to sutures—to revolutionize how digit lacerations are treated. Green notes, “The early success of the T-RING to immediately and safely provide a bloodless field allowed us to revisit the use of topical skin adhesives (TSA’s) on digits.” TSA’s “glue” wound edges together and are commonly used to treat small lacerations on other body parts. However, they cannot be used on wounds that are bleeding or under tension; limiting their use on digits. The TLC™ system combines the T-RING with PMD’s new “T-STRIP”and a topical skin adhesive to close digit wounds without the use of a laceration tray, injections or sutures. The T-STRIP is a porous wound strip that allows the provider to perfectly approximate wound edges and reduce wound tension. Once in place, a TSA is applied onto and through the T-STRIP to seal the wound. The T-STRIP and TSA simply slough off in 10-12 days, with no follow up visit required. Green notes, “Adopting Topical Laceration Closure™ is the simplest and most cost effective way for facilities to immediately minimize risk, reduce costs, increase efficiency and improve patient satisfaction in a high volume, high risk area of medicine – the initial treatment of finger lacerations.” Currently, PMD’s TLC™ system is being widely accepted by emergency departments, urgent care clinics and private offices to treat digit lacerations. However, Green believes that his company is only at the tip of the innovation iceberg, waiting to unravel the future possibilities of their trademark digit care system.