Revolutionary Vein-Viewing Technology Comes to Saint Clare’s Hospital
Ministry Health Care’s Saint Clare’s Hospital in Weston is the first facility in the region and just the third in the state of Wisconsin to use the latest technology in vascular imaging. The patented VeinViewer by Luminetx® is a revolutionary technology that projects the location of a patient’s veins and blood vessels directly on the surface of the skin, providing a vascular road map in real time.
“The VeinViewer will have a dramatic impact on patient care,” said Ellen Schumann, M.D., medical director of Women’s and Family Services and Marshfield Clinic pediatrician on staff at Saint Clare’s Hospital. “With VeinViewer, we have the potential to not only reduce the number of needle sticks, but also the levels of stress and discomfort associated with multiple sticks for our medical professionals, the patient and the patient’s family.”
The VeinViewer provides medical professionals with non-invasive technology for clinical treatments and procedures including IV insertion, routine venipuncture (blood sampling) and peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line insertion. Although performed frequently, venipuncture is commonly thought of as one of the most painful and anxiety-provoking invasive procedures performed by nurses, with more than 1 billion performed annually in the United States.
“The VeinViewer makes our patients’ veins and blood vessels visible to the naked eye,” said Jennifer Rhea, R.N., Medical/Pediatric Services manager at Saint Clare’s Hospital. “This technology will help us increase the efficiency of our system and success rate of our needle sticks. In addition we hope that this will increase patient outcomes, satisfaction and allow us to better allocate our resources.”
Developed by Luminetx Corporation, VeinViewer is the first and only patented technology to project real-time images directly onto the surface of the skin. VeinViewer utilizes near-infrared light, a digital video camera and an image processing unit to build an image of the patient’s vein’s and blood vessels. The device then projects that image, in real time, onto the patient’s skin using visible light. Health care professionals can keep their hands free during procedures while the system accurately maps regardless of age, body type or skin tone.
“This technology is changing the standard of compassionate care. We truly believe it will become a new standard of care throughout the world,” said Keith Gordon, RN, senior clinical support specialist for Luminetx. “And we’re thrilled that Saint Clare’s Hospital is joining the ranks of multiple premier health care facilities nationwide that have adopted the VeinViewer technology.”
Saint Clare’s Hospital will utilize two of the Vein Viewer devices by stationing them in the hospitals emergency department and inpatient unit. Its mobile design will allow for deployment in any department of the Weston Regional Medical Center. In 2004, VeinViewer was recognized by Time Magazine as "one of the most amazing medical inventions" of the year.
The newest member of the Ministry Health Care system sponsored by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, Saint Clare’s Hospital is a 110-bed all-digital provider of quality, compassionate care in central Wisconsin offering a wide range of primary and specialty care.