We’ve all been there: Sitting awkwardly on a doctor’s table, as a nurse stabs you repeatedly, trying to find a vein to draw some blood. It’s painful – and it could soon become a thing of the past, thanks to a nifty pair of x-ray glasses from Silicon Valley-based imaging firm Evena Medical.
Evena’s Eyes-On Glasses enable nurses (or any other user) to clearly see the veins beneath your skin, and choose the “best” vein for whatever reason a nurse might need to stick you with a needle. Eyes-On is similar to other medical devices made by Evena – but those are big, and need to be carted from room to room. Eyes-On can be worn like a pair of Google Glass, presumably making the process all that much easier.
“Studies have shown that up to 40 percent of IV starts require multiple attempts to locate and access a vein, which not only wastes valuable nursing time but also delays therapy and causes patient discomfort and dissatisfaction,” said Frank Ball, Evena Medical President and CEO, in a statement. “With Evena’s Eyes-On Glasses, nurses can quickly and easily locate and access the best veins for each patient – even in challenging clinical environments such as pediatric or neonatal units.”
The tech that gives Eyes-On Glasses their x-ray superpowers comes from Epson (yes, the same Epson that makes printers). The company’s Moverio smartglasses technology gives users a taste of augmented reality thanks to its transparent display that “projects overlays of digital content onto the real-world in the center of the wearer’s field of view … enabling a seamless blend of the physical and digital worlds,” according to Evena.
The Eyes-On Glasses also packs on-board storage for saving images of patients’ vein patters, and “telemedicine” capabilities (probably Wi-Fi) that let nurses easily share the images with doctors straight from the device.
Evena expects to start shipping Eyes-On Glasses in the first quarter of 2014, so don’t be surprised when your nurses walk in looking like they just came off the set of an 80s sci-fi movie.