A novel wireless vein finder

The process of venous access for drawing blood or intravenous drug delivery is a crucial one, upon which the number of successful attempts and quality of specimens depend. In this paper, we present a simple and cost effective design for a vein imaging system with wireless communication capability assisting in vein finding procedure performed on patients. The vein imaging is based on the differential pattern of Infrared (IR) light absorption by blood. A serial JPEG camera module interfaced with an Xbee pair wirelessly transmits the images to a central image processing unit which suitably highlights the superficially located veins thereby reducing the error involved in puncturing the right vein by the phlebotomist. Our results indicate that this could be transferred to the clinic for real world applications.