Visible Vein Technology

Hold on, help is on the way...

..."...placing needles inside veins deep in the body is notoriously difficult. Some 15-30% of attempts suffer complications, mainly punctured arteries that can lead to infection (around 250,000 cases in America annually), but also bleeding, collapsed lungs and even cardiac arrest. Failure rates in children can be higher still. A study in 2013 by Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, found that over half the attempts to place a central venous catheter in children failed on the first go."...

..."Portable ultrasound can be used to produce an image of the position of blood vessels to help insert needles. This has reduced errors, but the technique still requires a highly trained physician. Now a collaboration between Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel hopes to automate the entire process. A team led by Hugo Guterman, a robotics expert, has built a prototype device that uses ultrasound, machine vision and a robotic needle-dispenser to make placing a central venous catheter a push-button affair."...

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21647956-researchers-find-ways-automate-insertion-needles-point

ok, hold on for a moment. in talking to a nurse that has actually USED this device and observed others, the veins still walk and you can and will miss them.

it is a little better, but far from perfect

Maybe somebody will come up with a vein stabilising technique....like pinning the vein in place with very thin acupuncture type needles...

Maybe a pin within a needle...

I've had phlebotomists jab me 3 time in one arm, failed and jabbed another 2 times in the other arm and finally gave up only to have a different person do the job and hit it on the first try. Some people just have a knack for it, but unfortunately are too few.