Our lab's new toy: the vein finder!

In the phlebo area, extracting blood from palpable veins is a piece of cake but when you come across with people having easily collapsed and hard to find veins, then that's a problem. But worry no more, introducing the lab's new toy, the vein finder!

If you check the specifications, this handheld vein finder comes with a stand, charger and cradle port. This vein finder is made for pedia patients and patients with vascular positioning difficulties, such as obesity, swollen tissue, hairy skin, dark skin, hypovolemia, etc.

Principle

Vein Illuminator projects near-infrared (no radiation) light which is absorbed by blood and reflected by surrounding tissue, and this information is captured and processed, finally projected in real time directly on the surface of the skin. It provides a real time accurate image of the patient's superficial pattern on the skin of patient.

How to use this?

Simply place the handheld vein finder above the skin of your patient, and the machine will do the rest. This health gadget is perfect for all types of doctors, surgeons, and other types of healthcare professionals. It works on any type of tissue and skin tone.

Visualization Mode Features

Color	there are five colors that you can choose from (green, blue, blue green, red and pink)   for different patient skin tone and personal preference
Inverse	I personally prefer this to view the veins clearly. This allows clinicians to switch entire highlight the veins and highlight the surround tissue, to reduce the interference of skin tone, density of hair follicles and room brightness.
Brightness	3 degree brightness adjustable, allow clinicians customizing the image brightness base on the environment light.
Resize	3 kinds of image sizes, for pediatric patients or when need to focus on only one vessel.
Enhanced Mode	Helpful to find the small or deep veins.

My personal review:

Although this helps you to find the suitable vein of choice for venipuncture, you still need to trust your instinct. Palpate the vein of choice as many times to confirm. I can't agree much using this to obese patients for the reason that it probably can't penetrate the fats:-) However, at least this plays a significant role to help improve the success rate of vein puncture and reduce patient pain.

References:
http://www.meihuatrade.com/ProductInfo_4680.aspx#.WfrjlFuCzIU
http://best-of-technology.com/product/handheld-vein-finder-radiation-free-near-ir-light-0-25mm-accuracy-compact-design-4400mah-works-with-all-skin-types/