Vein Visualization for Better Stick Outcomes

Ron Bucher, Director of Worldwide Customer Service at AccuVein, talked on “Mapping Vasculature for Better Outcomes” at www.bio2devicegrou.org event.

Many of us have experience with being poked more than once on account of the nursing professional not being able to find a vein immediately.  There are serious consequences of a missed poke.  Patient satisfaction goes down and with new changes in healthcare laws, patient satisfaction is becoming very important indicator, and is increasingly being tied to many incentives.  More attempts at poking patients also increase cost of supplies and equipment, and take up more staff time as different staff members have to be called after some unsuccessful attempts.  There is also increased potential for infection, as well as other complications, and potential delays in treatment, as well as possibility of compromise of optimal therapy.

Almost 3 million sticks per day take place in the US.  As high as 70% of medical decisions are made by blood tests, and IVs are used in 95% of hospital admissions, said Bucher.  Liabilities and challenges of missed sticks are particularly important in cases of more vulnerable populations; including pediatric patients, the elderly, among diabetic or obese patients, among chemotherapy patients, and the very sick.

English: Blood draw for genetic studies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AccuVein is a vein visualization product that increases the success rate with first stick by 350%.   This is a portable, non contact product that illuminates the veins, for easy stick, with first attempt.  Advantages of getting it right on first attempt are many, including increased patient satisfaction and reduction in pain related negative comments by patients, by 59%.  AccuVein use also leads to reduction in cost, reduced hospital stays, and reduction in time to complete a procedure.  Return on investment would be in less than a year’s time.  The percentage of procedures completed within 15 minutes, with AccuVein, went up to 97% from earlier 53%.  This also enhanced confidence among nursing staff.  Most nursing staff gets a bare minimum of 1 hour of training for venal puncture; often they learn on patients through trial and error, said Bucher.  AccuVein product is easy to use and requires minimum training and reduces escalations by 45%.  It is a point and click product that works in light and dark, works on all skin types and is non orientation sensitive. 

Bucher shared extremely high patient satisfaction data.  With high patient satisfaction, greatly reduced cost in terms of resources and time, and increased staff confidence, clearly AccuVein type product should become a standard of care in all healthcare facilities.  The talk was followed by Q&A.