application of vein finder display device in Intravenous Infusion therapy

The Development of Venous Vessel Display Devices

Over 100 years ago, technicians began developing various techniques to make human veins clearly visible.

The first invention was thermosensitive stickers: due to the higher temperature of human venous blood compared to the skin surface, using certain thermosensitive color changing substances to stick on the surface of the arm can make the veins visible. But this method requires that it must be used under sterile conditions, as the usage conditions are too demanding and cannot be widely applied.

The second invention is the light source reflection direct observation device: when a light source is irradiated on the back of the hand, deoxyhemoglobin in the veins absorbs the light, so the color of the veins is darker than the surrounding area. But this technology is suitable for people with lighter skin color, and the effect of using it is very poor for people with darker skin color.

The latest infrared vein display device is a non-invasive and radiation free instrument that utilizes the principle that hemoglobin in blood vessels has a different absorption rate of infrared light compared to other tissues. Subcutaneous veins that are difficult to observe with the naked eye can be observed through the display device. This vein viewer device can assist medical staff in venipuncture.

Principle of Infrared Venous Vessel Display Device

The principle of the infrared vein display device is designed based on the principle that deoxyhemoglobin in the vein absorbs near-infrared light more strongly than surrounding tissues.

Principle of Venous Vessel Display Device

When near-infrared light is used to irradiate human skin, subcutaneous veins contain a large amount of deoxyhemoglobin, which can strongly absorb near-infrared light and appear dark. At the same time, other parts of subcutaneous tissue appear bright due to weak absorption ability of near-infrared light.

Exposure of human skin to infrared light can display veins with different depths and diameters ranging from 0-6mm due to the varying absorption and reflectivity of infrared light by different levels of skin tissues.

With the help of an infrared venous vessel display device, blood vessels can be quickly searched and located, and information such as size, thickness, direction, and depth of blood vessels can be determined. It can also detect blood flow status and evaluate whether blood vessels have lesions, thereby reducing the difficulty of medical staff's work, improving the success rate of venipuncture, saving time, and enhancing patient satisfaction.

Classification of Infrared Venous Vessel Display Devices

The infrared vein display device is divided into screen display mode, real-time projection display mode, and handheld projection display mode according to its display mode.

Infrared vein display mode (1) screen display mode; (2) Real time projection display mode; (3) Handheld projection display mode. The screen display mode, also known as LCD (liquid crystal display), has the advantage of good imaging effect. The disadvantage is that the image is displayed on the screen, and medical staff's gaze needs to move back and forth between the LCD screen and the patient's skin to observe and compare the two areas, and find a suitable site for venipuncture. This results in inconvenient use and fails to meet the requirements of humanized design.

Projection display mode directly projects the enhanced veins onto the corresponding positions on the body surface, achieving the coincidence of the projected veins and the real veins, and determining the most suitable site for venipuncture. It is convenient and flexible to use.

Development of Infrared Venous Vessel Display Instrument

Tracing the development history of infrared vein display devices, it can be divided into the following stages: design portability stage, artificial intelligence stage, and comprehensive application stage.

1. Design for portability

In order to overcome the inconvenience of moving devices due to their large size, infrared vein display devices are showing a trend towards portability. The miniaturization of volume makes clinical applications more flexible and diverse, breaking through spatial limitations. This development is of great significance for the intravenous infusion treatment of critically ill patients and emergency patients both inside and outside the hospital.

2. Artificial intelligence

The artificial intelligence of infrared vein display instrument is mainly reflected in two aspects: vascular depth recognition and subcutaneous needle tip recognition.

(1) Vascular depth recognition:

Based on the different reflection effects of blood vessels at different depths on near-infrared light, different features are represented in the image. Using an image processor, feature information is extracted and calculated. Based on artificial intelligence technology, the corresponding relationship between feature information and blood vessel depth is trained, and finally the blood vessel depth can be recognized and displayed on the image. The green indicator light indicates the blood vessel depth, one green grid indicates a blood vessel depth of 0-2mm, two green grids indicate a blood vessel depth of 2-4mm, and three green grids indicate a blood vessel depth greater than 4mm (as shown in the figure below).

Comprehensive application

With the continuous deepening of clinical applications of infrared vein display devices, marginal details have also been improved, mainly including the following aspects: imaging brightness, imaging size, imaging color, and camera storage.

(1) Imaging brightness:

In order to achieve good venous imaging under different lighting conditions (indoor, outdoor, daytime, nighttime) without being limited by external light sources for clinical use, brightness adjustment can be used, which has positive clinical significance for emergency treatment outside the hospital.

(2) Imaging size:

In large sizes, it is convenient to quickly locate the target blood vessel. When puncturing the target blood vessel, in small sizes, only the target blood vessel can be displayed to avoid interference from surrounding blood vessels. In addition, the large size is suitable for adults, while the small size is suitable for infants and young children

(3) Imaging color:

When the same color is projected onto the skin surface of patients with different skin tones, there is a certain difference in the contrast of the image. The adjustable imaging color ensures that patients with different skin tones have good imaging effects

Clinical Application of Infrared Venous Vessel Display Device

The establishment of venous access is a crucial clinical treatment method for achieving fluid supply and drug delivery.

However, due to the different vascular conditions of patients, such as subcutaneous tissue, vascular filling, elasticity, curvature, and thickness, it is difficult to obtain accurate and comprehensive evaluation through the naked eye alone. In addition, subjective factors such as poor patient compliance and insufficient nurse puncture experience increase the risk of puncture.

Using an infrared vein display device to identify the location of peripheral veins can help make informed decisions regarding vein selection.

It projects the superficial veins that are invisible to the naked eye into the skin surface in situ and indicates the depth of the blood vessels, improving the accuracy of evaluation and providing reference for the selection of puncture angles, thereby optimizing the venipuncture plan. When the blood vessels are intuitively displayed on the patient's skin surface, the patient can also understand the objective conditions of their own blood vessels, facilitating communication between nurses and patients, improving patient compliance, and bringing the nurse patient relationship closer.

The infrared vein display instrument uses near-infrared light, and the light source does not produce radiation or heat, which can effectively prevent the instrument from harming the skin and eyes of children (as shown in the figure below), especially suitable for infants and young children. In peripheral venipuncture, infants and young children are a special group. Due to their young age, immature blood vessel development (small blood vessels, poor filling), thick subcutaneous fat, large individual differences in blood vessel distribution, and poor compliance during puncture, venipuncture has always been a nursing challenge. How to improve the success rate of the first puncture has become an urgent problem that pediatric vein finder needs to solve.

The application of portable vein viewer equipment has alleviated the pain of pediatric patients and is of great importance in reducing medical disputes and improving the satisfaction of their families.