Vascular Access

The focus of IVA Medical is on “vascular access”.

Access to the bloodstream, or vascular access, is necessary to quickly introduce fluids into the body, or draw blood out. The most common form of vascular access is via a Peripheral IntraVenous Catheter (PIVC, small flexible tube that is inserted through the skin into a peripheral vein).

Miscannulation, a common problem in healthcare

80% of patients admitted to a hospital receive a Peripheral Intravenous Catheter (PIVC). Usually, to be able to administer a therapy easily and quickly. Unfortunately, the cannulation still goes wrong very often, research shows that in 17%¹ up to 50%² of the patients the first attempt fails. This is not only painful for the patient, but it also poses a risk of complications. It can disrupt the treatment and increase costs.

With an increasing number of difficult-to-prick patients (due to, for example, old age, diabetes, obesity), there is an increasing need for solutions that help improve cannulation procedures. Ultrasound guidance helps prevent miscannulation. This is still too limited applied, because it requires an “extra” hand for holding the probe and very good eye-hand coordination. The result is that Ultrasound guidance is currently not commonly used by nurses for PIVC, even in patients which are difficult to cannulate.

IVA Medical: making ultrasound-guided vascular access easy

It is our goal to make ultrasound guidance so simple that it can be learned by anyone and applied anywhere. The Vascoscope is our first important step on that road. A first study at the Catharina Hospital shows that anaesthesia staff, without ultrasound experience, learn to cannulate faster with Vascoscope than with a traditional ultrasound machine³

Vascular access is particularly important in haemodialysis

The term vascular access is often used specifically for access to the bloodstream in patients with renal failure. This is necessary to filter the blood externally (hemodialysis). An average patient is cannulated with two thick needles 3 times a week in a small piece of specially prepared vessel (the shunt) in the lower or upper arm. It is essential that this shunt continues to function properly. Ultrasound-guided puncture helps to prevent damage, but it is difficult for healthcare professionals to learn to master this technique properly. The Vascoscope has been developed in cooperation with dialysis nurses to specifically simplify ultrasound guided access in haemodialysis.

¹ Research in the OR in the Catherina Hospital by Van Loon et al (Development of the A-DIVA Scale: A Clinical Predictive Scale to Identify Difficult Intravenous Access in Adult Patients Based on Clinical Observations. Medicine. Volume 95, Number 16, April 2016)

² “Rates of failed insertion and post insertion complications are high, with nearly half of all first insertion attempts failing” Excerpt from: “Peripheral intravenous catheters: A review of guidelines and research” by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in 2019. (https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-06/literature-review-peripheral-intravenous-catheters-a-review-of-guidelines-and-research_qut.pdf)

³ Research on 16 anaesthesia staff in the Catherina Hospital by Moors et al (The impact of a head-mounted device with probe fixation for ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous cannulation, a feasibility study. 2021 to be published)