How does a vein finder work and when is it required?

What is a vein finder?


A vein finder, as the name suggests is a device that helps healthcare providers see veins when they are unable to locate them easily with a naked eye. A vein finder can either be an infrared vein finder or a terahertz vein finder – the concept is the same. Both use radiation reflection technology to create a map of the veins. This map of veins created is then projected back on the patient’s skin.

So, why must a patient be put through discomfort by repeated hitting of the area for the vein to appear, when one can much rather use a vein finder to locate it with ease.

 

How does a vein finder work?

A vein finder uses deep infrared or terahertz rays to trace the veins. The rays penetrate the skin and help map out the veins. The Rekindle vein finder, for instance, is an advanced version of the traditional vein finders that penetrates the skin and the veins that were not located easily or were difficult to find become very clear.

Vein finders are basically optical devices that adopt the concept of Infrared light creating an image and superimposing the projection onto the area where the veins are to be viewed. This could be a person’s forearm, legs or any other part of the body that you want to focus on.  The Infrared or terahertz light that is projected onto this viewing area is absorbed by those areas where there is blood (the veins). Since the light is being absorbed by the blood, less light is reflected back by the veins. This is done very quickly in a manner of scanning by the vein finder, creating a digital image that is projected on the viewing area of the patient.

Vein Finder highlights a person’s veins using transillumination of a particular terahertz light making it more suitable for a dynamic hospital set-up as it saves time & lives of patients. It provides improved visibility, enhancing the medical staff efficiency while locating veins and making it ideal for IV therapy.

 

When is a vein finder required?


A vein finder is easy to use and has become an essential tool for any health care professional that performs venipuncture procedures – either for blood withdrawal or intravenous injections.

Vein finders are critical across multiple medical professional procedures, be it quick and accurate IV access requirement by a frontline healthcare professional, a routine blood specimen collection by a phlebotomist or a medical professional in the hospital – a good quality vein finder is an absolute requirement for all.

A vein finder performs 2 main functions that are prerequisites for all procedures that require a needle insertion into the veins. This could range from something as small as collecting a blood sample to a full-fledged surgery. The determination of the needle size will depend entirely on the veins.

A vein finder typically finds the vein location & makes them visible on the patient’s area to be administered, to the medical professional real time. With the help of a vein finder, healthcare practitioners and nurses can easily pass Intra Venous cannula or administer parenteral medication.

  1. Blood sample collection – the vein finder would enable a phlebotomist to locate the vein problem-free, avoid and pre-analytical error & prevent discomfort to the patient.
  2. Cannulation – this process is challenging due to the difficulties involved during this process. Locating a vein becomes difficult if a person is dehydrated, obese, has hypotension, the vein site has been used for drugs, there is skin rash on the site, the person performing the procedure isn’t skilled enough and many more reasons – to ease the process of cannulation and ensuring a first-time needle insertion success rate, a vein finder can do wonders.

A vein finder needed primarily to locate the blood vessels and won’t play a role where actual physical manipulation of the needle is needed.

 

A patient’s vein is extremely important as it is the primary site for blood specimen withdrawal, medical tests, entry point for administering medications, and conducting blood transfusions; the criticality of a vein in the human body increases the importance of a vein finder. Smart Medical Buyer is currently running an offer on Rekindle vein finder price, India where you can use the code REK80 and get upto 80% off on the products. Since it uses terahertz light frequency, you don’t need to worry about the side effects that UV or infra-red vein finders may have.