VEID™ beeps when the IV needle is … intravenous! Developed by an Israeli company Vascular Technologies Ltd., the electronic gadget makes a sound within 0.1 seconds of the needle’s entrance into the vein’s lumen.
Globes [online] reports:
Matalon [Eli Matalon, the company’s founder-ed.], a former IDF medic, conceived the idea after realizing how difficult it was to insert a catheter into the vein of a battlefield casualty. Development of the product began in 1998, with the help of a team of eight engineers. Since then, Vascular Technologies has obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. Matalon says research conducted by his company at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, headed by Dr. Yaakov Katz, found that success rate for inserting a needle and catheter into children rose from 70% to 91%. Among patients with hard-to-find veins, the success rate rose from 26% to 90%.
The device, called Vein Entry Indicator Device (VEID), comprises a pressure sensor, signal processing unit, battery and miniature loudspeaker. It operates by sensing the change in pressure when the needle penetrates a vein. One tenth of a second later, the VEID beeps, completing the procedure. The VEID currently costs $120 per unit, and can be reused about 2,000 times. The cost of a VEID-catheter adaptor is an extra $0.20.
Vascular Technologies has also developed a special catheter that includes a VEID, thereby eliminating the cost of the adaptor. Because of these costs, Vascular Technologies’ target market is patients with hard-to-find veins.
More at Vascular Technologies Ltd…
