Hunterdon Healthcare Patients Benefit From Veinviewer To Reduce Sticks And PICCs

Hunterdon Medical Center, a 178-bed non-profit community hospital, and Christie Medical Holdings, Inc., a global leader in portable vein finders, today announced that use of the Christie VeinViewer® Vision2 is helping to improve the level of care provided to their patients.

“A key goal for implementation of VeinViewer systems was to decrease the number of central lines placed in favor of less invasive peripheral IVs,” states Marian Racco, MSN, RN, CCRN, ICU Clinical Coordinator. “Over the past year, we achieved our goal to reduce central line placements. Our central line utilization has been at or below the NHSN 50th percentile since June of 2016! We feel this is best for the patient, potentially reducing their exposure to risk and increasing their overall satisfaction. We evaluated our options, and VeinViewer provided everything we needed.”

Studies show that on average it requires 2.4 painful sticks to place an IV catheter. Nurses providing care may have previously had no choice but to stick patients multiple times in order to deliver necessary treatment. The Christie VeinViewer system is the first and only device to use harmless near-infrared light to detect a patient’s veins and then immediately project a high definition image of the veins directly on the patient’s skin. With VeinViewer, nurses can quickly find more options for accessing a patient’s veins for blood draws or to place a peripheral IV catheter. A more thorough assessment with VeinViewer, means Hunterdon Medical Center patients may avoid multiple needle sticks and possible future complications sometimes associated with IV access.

“One of our staff nurses, Lisbeth Lella, BSN, RN, asked for us to look at technology that would assist with peripheral IV catheter placement because our ICU patient population is typically very difficult to find a vein. We chose the VeinViewer system because it is easy to use and has saved our patients from multiple sticks. It has really helped us with placing peripheral IV catheters and the nurses love it. In fact, one of our nurses stated that she feels the VeinViewer is the best purchase we ever made for the ICU,” said Janice Wagner, BSN, RN, CCRN, Director of Intensive Care and Respiratory Therapy. “One of our goals is to keep pace and offer the newest trends in medicine to our community. VeinViewer helps us do just that.”

George Pinho, Christie’s president, said “We are very pleased that VeinViewer fits into Hunterdon Medical Center’s patient care goals. VeinViewer is the only device of its kind that has been shown through clinical studies to increase both first-stick success and patient satisfaction by up to 100 percent while reducing PICC lines placed due to difficult venous access by over 30 percent.”

The Infusion Nurses Society, an organization dedicated to setting the standards for infusion therapy, recommends the use of vein visualization technology – such as the VeinViewer system – for patients with difficult or poor venous access.