Inserting a needle into a patient’s blood vessel is a common procedure that requires a great deal of skill and experience. Some types of patients (children, the obese, etc.) can be challenging for even the most skilled expert. Reynolds Medical came to us with the idea of building a device that simplifies this procedure with the goal of reducing the number of needle sticks and their associated complications.

The resulting product, the Reynolds Medical Blood Vessel Finder (BVF), uses pulsed Doppler ultrasound to provide an audio-visual guide to the operator during needle insertion. We developed an innovative algorithm to combine blood velocity information from different depths and then visualize and display this information, allowing the operator to differentiate in real time between arteries and veins.