Technologies
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Disposable Vein Finder

Technology Overview
Venepuncture is challenging in patients with conditions that cause difficulties in locating their veins (e.g., Renal failure, obesity, intra-venous drug use, and elderly patients). Multiple unsuccessful venepuncture attempts cause pain, delays in clinical investigations and treatment. The technology offer presents a vein finder device that aims to help procedurists locate the patients’ vein easily and reduce the number of attempts and duration needed to obtain venous access in difficult cases. This technology offer is looking for collaborators who are willing to commercialise this technology into the market.
Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages
This solution utilizes the principle of transillumination (shining of light through a part of the body or organ to obtain abnormalities) to visualize veins invisible to the naked eye. Independent light sources are mounted on individual fingers which allow proceduralists to: Visualize superficial veins as a silhouette, perform real-time cannulation under direct vision, increase visualization field by increasing the number of devices mounted, anchor veins in a stable position during venepuncture and have an unrestricted view of the area of illumination.
Potential Applications
Venepuncture is one of the most performed clinical procedures. Up to 84% of patients admitted in a hospital requires venepuncture. Venepuncture is a challenging procedure for patients with co-morbidities that predispose them to have inaccessible veins. These include patients with renal failure, obesity, a history of intra-venous drug use, and elderly patients.
Potential applications include :
- An affordable and disposable device that would have a cost similar to a common basic blood investigation (e.g., Full blood count)
- Device would be disposed after a patient’s admission or be kept by the patient for use during his or her future clinic appointments or admissions
- Device would be made available to not just healthcare workers, but also to patients – this is an affordable device that can be made available over the counter at pharmacies/retail shops
- Patients who have difficult venous access would be able to request for healthcare workers to prophylactically use the device to prevent unwanted unsuccessful venepuncture attempts
Customer Benefit
This solution would be 10 to 100 times cheaper compared to existing commercial venepuncture assistive devices. The cost of existing commercial devices ranges from SGD$600 TO SGD$20,000. This technology can be fully customized and configured based on clients’ requirement.
Other areas of use include the field of Vascular Surgery and Plastic Surgery. The device can be used to locate veins for procedures such as vein grafting or lymph venous anastomosis. An affordable device would allow commercialization in developing nations and the use during humanitarian missions.