Birmingham Medical News:
VeinViewer Makes Drawing Blood a Cinch
Monday, January 01, 2007
By Lynne Jeter
January Issue
After only a few months in the marketplace, VeinViewer by Luminetx™ is a hit among doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.
The device, which allows clinicians to clearly see accessible vasculature (or lack thereof) in real time, uses a combination of near-infrared light and patented technologies to image vascular structures and project their location directly on the surface of the skin.
Jim Phillips, founder of Memphis-based Luminetx, which developed and markets VeinViewer, began pilot product manufacturing last spring. In October, Luminetx received FDA clearance for VeinViewer as a Class I exempt medical device, allowing full commercial rollout. The following month, the company announced that it had raised approximately $15 million in capital during its most recent financing round.
“We saw this as a unique opportunity to not only build our financial resources, but to also expand our investor pool to include key industry participants,” said Phillips, one of InformationWeek’s 2004 Innovators of the Year.
VeinViewer, which Time magazine called “the coolest medical innovation of the year,” provides a safe, noninvasive adjunct technology for clinical treatments and procedures including, but not limited to IV insertions, PICC line insertions, routine venipuncture (blood sampling), blood and plasma donations and treatment for varicose and spider veins. The machine sells for approximately $25,000.
VeinViewer is currently being used at Memphis-based Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, University of Wisconsin Children’s Hospital, Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md., and Midwest Vein Center in the Chicago area, just to name a few.
“This technology is changing the face of patient care, and we truly believe it will become a new standard of care throughout the world,” said Phillips.
Dr. Joel A. Saltzman, medical director of anesthesiology at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, said VeinViewer has allowed the hospital “to avoid expensive and traumatic visits to the OR to obtain venous access. This translates into less risk to the patient and thousands of dollars saved. This also means more efficiency in the OR because we do not have to disrupt the schedule for this type of procedure.”
Joyce Deptola, RN, clinical nurse manager of the pediatric venous access team at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, said it can be extremely difficult to insert an IV or draw blood from a child or a very small baby.
“The VeinViewer has an adjustable head that can be positioned over almost any part of the body, leaving the hands of the clinician free to perform the procedure much more easily,” she said. “This technology is truly having an impact on patient care.”
Forbes magazine said VeinViewer offered “great possibilities for relieving the pincushion syndrome all too common when phlebotomists are trying to draw blood, especially from seniors, kids and cancer patients, all of whom may have hard-to-spot veins.”
“You lay your arm underneath it, and it projects near-infrared light onto your arm, which bounces off red blood cells and gets processed by a PC,” wrote Bruce Upbin. “Then the image is reprojected onto your arm in a neat, green square. There’s huge biometric potential for use by homeland security types to identify people or to replace credit cards, since no two vein structures are alike.
“It turns out we are our own bar codes.”
After having his veins revealed by VeinViewer, Wall Street Journal reporter Joel Henning said: “This spooky device will prove a boon to medical technicians searching for the right veins in which to insert needles, and Botox specialists trying to avoid them.”
Phillips is already looking beyond VeinViewer for other integrated high-tech healthcare applications.
“Vein-viewing isn’t the only application Luminetx has planned for its technology,” he said. “The company also hopes to penetrate the national security market through its subsidiary Snowflake Technologies. Snowflake is out to capitalize on the fact that every person’s vein pattern is unique and can be used to verify identity. The company’s research and development team are vigorously looking for ways to expand the current product line.”
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