St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
VeinViewer means fewer sticks, less pain
Thursday, June 14, 2007
By Tina Hesman Saey
Getting an IV or having blood drawn is getting a little less painful at two area hospitals.
Nurses at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center and St. John's Mercy Medical Center are using a machine called the VeinViewer to help them locate good veins in hard-to-stick patients. The two hospitals are the first in the area to use the device, made by Luminetx, a Memphis-based medical device company. The company began selling the machines last summer.
Joan Aaron, the nursing manager at Cardinal Glennon, knows the pain of multiple sticks from both sides of the needle. On her first day of working in a hospital, she endured 45 needle sticks before someone was able to draw enough blood to do essential lab tests. Since then, Aaron has been the one drawing blood and starting IVs. It's not always easy.
Dehydrated patients, tiny babies, people in shock, elderly patients, people who have already endured multiple needle sticks or those whose veins collapse easily present a challenge for health care workers trying to find a good vein. Most nurses rely on veins that they can easily see or feel. Sometimes those veins are nearly impossible to find, and health care workers have to take multiple pokes before they can insert the needle.
The VeinViewer brings veins out of hiding by shining a green light on the skin, revealing the veins as black lines.
"It's like Superman's X-ray vision," Aaron said.
But, the real technology doesn't involve X-rays. Instead, the device shines beams of near-infrared light about a third of an inch into the skin. Tissues around the vein reflect the light back to a digital camera, and the blood inside the veins absorbs the light, making them appear black. The camera takes 30 to 32 pictures each second and projects them back onto the skin, showing where the veins are in real time.
Jenny Schwartz, a nurse clinician at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, has been using the hospital's three VeinViewers for about a month. In that time, she has had six patients whose veins she couldn't see and couldn't feel. In the past, Schwartz said she would have spent 20 minutes feeling around trying to find a vein in such a patient. Then she would have tried to insert the needle a couple of times or called someone else to try. With the VeinViewer, it took only a moment to find a vein, and the needle went in on the first try in five of the six patients.
"I probably wouldn't have gotten even one without the VeinViewer," Schwartz said.
The device's primary role at the hospitals is to spare patients from unnecessary pain, but it also can save money. Staff members can be more efficient because it takes less time to start IVs and draw blood. Hospitals also save money by conserving materials, such as IV catheters that must be discarded after an unsuccessful attempt.
The machine has other advantages too.
"The kids are just transfixed by the light," said Becky Chambers, a registered nurse at Cardinal Glennon's transitional care unit. "We used to distract them with toys and stuff, but now it's just the light."
Not every patient is wowed by the light, however.
"It was kinda creepy," said Christian Canada, 11, of Belleville. Christian was one of the first patients at Cardinal Glennon to get a needle stick under the green glow of the VeinViewer.
Cardinal Glennon bought seven of the machines and positioned them throughout the hospital. The machines have been in use for just a week, but the VeinViewer southward on the third floor has already been christened Vivian.
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