Near Infrared Light System Makes Drawing Blood Easier

If there’s anything worse than having to receive injections at the doctor’s office, it has to be getting blood drawn in the lab. Even though they promise it’s not going to hurt (yeah, right!), it always ends up hurting just a little bit. It hurts even worse when they can’t find a good vein and have to keep on poking you all over the place until they find one that’ll work. My wife knows this all too well – her veins like to hide, and, she’s terrified of needles, so getting her blood drawn is quite the ordeal. It might not be such an ordeal for much longer, though, thanks to near infrared light technology that makes your veins come out of hiding.

While it sounds easy, the opposite is actually true. It uses the near infrared light to locate deoxygenated hemoglobin which in turn glows under the light source. Then, once glowing, good veins are able to be easily located, removing the need for professionals to “dig around” until they find a good blood source. Right now, the Australian Red Cross is testing this technology at blood donation centers. If successful, who knows how many hospitals and laboratories could make use of it? You can see for yourself the device in action below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlsohMj_IVA#t=61

Cost information is unavailable at this time, but such technology most likely isn’t on the cheap scale, so that will certainly be a deciding factor in its implementation into other medical facilities.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below!

[Image via CNET]

SOURCE: TechCrunch