Healthcare (Commonwealth Union) – In the year 2010, University of California Los Angels (UCLA) nursing professor Barbara Bates-Jensen went to Haiti to oversee and deliver wound care for survivors of a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which had claimed or injured over half a million lives and displaced some 5 million people.
Bates-Jensen indicated that they had been lying on army cots, many for three weeks before she arrived, and beyond the earthquake-related injuries, they were suffering from severe pressure wounds reaching down to the bone.
Few people were better equipped to handle such a crisis. As a globally recognized researcher and author specializing in wound care, Bates-Jensen is an authority on pressure ulcers—commonly referred to as bedsores—which primarily affect immobile individuals such as critically ill hospital patients, people with spinal cord injuries, and residents of nursing homes.
In the United States alone, around 2.5 million people develop bedsores each year, with roughly 60,000 dying from complications related to these pressure ulcers. Treating them costs the American healthcare system billions each year. Perhaps most striking is that majority of these cases are preventable. Air mattresses and water beds are often used in elderly care homes in an attempt to prevent bed sores.
Traditionally, nurses detect bedsores by observing changes in skin color. However, by the time redness appears, the damage is already done. Research also indicates that patients with darker skin tones—such as Black and Latino individuals—experience more severe pressure ulcers, as the color changes are harder to detect.
Bates-Jensen stated that this disparity in care was incredibly frustrating and they were depending on such a subjective approach, relying on visual cues that often overlooked a whole group of patients.
The SEM Scanner has the great potential of revolutionizing bedsores as well as advanced health equity. Working alongside UCLA Samueli School of Engineering professors William Kaiser and Majid Sarrafzadeh, Bates-Jensen developed the SEM Scanner—the first handheld, wireless device for assessing wounds. UCLA’s Technology Development Group licensed it to Bruin Biometrics, marking a major breakthrough in medical care.
The device detects moisture, or edema, beneath the skin—a key physiological indicator of early tissue damage. It can identify pressure injuries in their initial stages, up to 10 days before they become visible to the eye.
“The best part is the device doesn’t care what color the skin is, because it’s not looking at the skin — it’s reading within the tissues,” says Bates-Jensen who pointed out that the scanner, which functions in a similar manner to the seismometers utilized on the NASA Mars landing craft that seeks out clues below the surface of the planet. “And so just by virtue of that, you’re creating a more equitable situation where you can pick up the damage on everyone.”
Time magazine praised the device as one of the top inventions of 2020, and Fast Company recognized Bruin Biometrics as one of the 10 most innovative medical device companies of 2025, citing the impact of the SEM Scanner.
Currently, the SEM Scanner is being used in hospitals across Europe, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. In the United States alone, it is estimated that over 1 million patients have benefited from the device, helping to prevent approximately 50,000 pressure injuries.
Bates-Jensen, who also serves as associate dean of academic affairs at the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing, is now participating in a study aimed at bringing the scanner beyond hospitals—potentially to nursing homes, where residents face a particularly high risk of bedsores.
“We think this study will also tell us a lot about how we can best implement technology in this type of health care setting,” she explained, “as well as adding to the growing data looking at skin tones and how that may impact the delivery of care.”
