A visit to a doctor’s office, a clinic or a hospital may necessitate vascular access — that is, the insertion of a needle or catheter into a patient’s vein or artery. These procedures are required for the following reasons:

To administer fluids, drugs or solutions
To obtain and monitor vital signs
To place long-term access devices
To perform simple venipunctures

Vascular access ranks as the most commonly performed, invasive, medical procedure in the U.S — over 1.4 billion procedures annually — as well as the top patient complaint among clinical procedures. The overwhelming majority of vascular access procedures are performed without the aid of any visualization device and rely on what is observed through the patient’s skin and by the clinician’s ability to feel the vessel. Medical literature reports the following statistics*:

28% first attempt IV failure rate in normal adults
44% first attempt IV failure in pediatrics
43% of pediatric IVs require three or more insertion attempts
23% to 28% incidence of extravasation/infiltration
12% outright failure rate in cancer patients
25% of hospital in-patients beyond three days encounter difficult access