~500 million blood draws are missed every year, with great consequences. The most important complication is nerve injury, occurring in approximately a million cases. Nerve injury can even lead to permanent disablement. In addition to direct complications for patients, blood drawing presents real issues for clinical laboratories. Blood drawing is the only step in the blood testing process that is not automated. The majority of lab errors occur during the blood draw, accounting for more than an estimated 160M diagnostic errors leading to misdiagnosis and -treatment plus ~€10B in yearly costs for society. Furthermore, operational costs for laboratories are high and blood drawing personnel is difficult to find.
The VD-1 can autonomously draw blood from patients. Willingness to use a device is very high. The majority of patients visiting the hospital for a blood draw are willing to try the VD-1. For laboratories, the VD-1 will reduce diagnostic errors because of standardization of the process. Moreover, labs can save on operational cost and increase capacity. The benefits are clear to our (European) potential customers, who have invested, signed letters of intent to purchase and are keen to collaborate.
The technology of the VD-1 (seven patents applied) consists of real-time image recognition software based on AI, tested on a vast number of images, able to create a 3D vein image despite difficult conditions. Advanced robotic positioning ensures high needle precision, impossible to achieve by a human. For ultimate safety, the needle position can be adjusted based on patient movements. The overall objectives of the BRAVE project are to optimize and validate the prototype in BRAVE Clinical Study, subsequently industrialize and validate the positioning system with as result the fabrication of the 0-series.
