Sioux Valley News:
Revolutionary Vein Viewing Technology Comes to Sioux Valley
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Sioux Valley News: Press Release
(Sioux Falls, SD) New technology now at Sioux Valley is making patients more comfortable by avoiding repeated needle sticks to find difficult to see veins. The Luminetx VeinViewer is revolutionary technology that allows medical professionals to clearly see veins beneath the skin's surface. The patented VeinViewer makes projects real-time images of the location of veins directly onto the skin. Anywhere on the body. On any type of patient. An adjustable head can be positioned at any point on the patient's anatomy, leaving the clinician's hands free.
Sioux Valley is adding 21 VeinViewer devices. Five are already in use at Sioux Valley thanks to a generous donation from philanthropist, T. Denny Sanford. The other sixteen are being distributed the first week of October.
VeinViewer uses an infrared light source to image the hemoglobin in red blood cells, allowing a video camera to capture the images of the vein's location. The video images are processed through a computer and projected onto the patient's skin. With VeinViewer, healthcare providers may quickly and accurately map a patient's veins for a variety of procedures, regardless of age, gender, body type or skin tone. During prototype development in 2004, the device was recognized by Time magazine as one of the most innovative medical inventions of the year.
"The VeinViewer makes difficult to find veins visible to the naked eye," says Ang Krueger, a registered nurse at Sioux Valley. "It allows us to accurately find a vein quickly, without any added discomfort to the patient. As a nurse in pediatrics at Sanford Children's Hospital, I've seen how this device is truly amazing for our patients."
At Sioux Valley, the VeinViewer is currently in use in the following areas: Sanford Children's, surgery, inpatient radiology, the Boekelheide neonatal intensive care unit, and the Trauma 5 emergency department. During the first week of October, one will be added to Sioux Valley Cancer Center – Oncology Clinic. Another will be added at Sanford Children's Specialty Clinic. The other new Vein Viewers will be distributed throughout Sioux Valley Hospital.
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