- Organizations will conduct first system-wide assessment of inpatient blood draw procedures to identify process and cost improvements -
SALT LAKE CITY and SAN FRANCISCO, November 12, 2015 – Intermountain Healthcare, a not-for-profit health system of 22 hospitals based in Salt Lake City, and Velano Vascular, a medical technology company transforming and enhancing the care experience for hospitalized patients and their practitioners, announced today that they have partnered to define the costs and identify improvement opportunities related to one of the most common medical procedures performed today – inpatient blood draws. This relationship represents the first formal, system-wide analysis to comprehensively measure the integral and varied components of a procedure that affects nearly every hospitalized patient around the world.
“Thousands of times every day, the act of drawing blood may cause pain and anxiety for our hospitalized patients, create risks for our healthcare professionals, and burden our system with substantial costs in an effort to the deliver the highest quality care,” said Kim Henrichsen, RN, MSN, chief nursing officer and vice president of clinical operations for Intermountain. “Our collaboration with Velano represents a unique and compelling opportunity to better understand and improve our practice of this ubiquitous procedure.”
The initial component of the partnership comprises a series of time and motion studies to record – across a host of clinical care settings - the processes, costs and implications of multiple blood-draw approaches, including needle sticks (clinically known as venipunctures) and peripheral IV-line (PIV) blood draws. Intermountain’s Management Engineering team and Velano Vascular staff will use the resulting data to define the costs (both direct and indirect) associated with blood collections and to identify practice variations that could inform quality and cost improvement opportunities.
“By systematically assessing a very common medical procedure and then identifying innovative yet practical ways to improve it for patients and healthcare providers, our collaboration with Velano represents the forward-thinking approach to enhancing quality of care that defines Intermountain,” said Todd Dunn, director of innovation and head of the Intermountain Healthcare Transformation Lab.
The collaboration will assess the clinical and operational benefits of Velano Vascular’s novel needle-free blood collection technology as compared to current standards of care across care settings, patient populations, provider safety, and patient experience. The Velano Vascular device is designed to reduce unnecessary pain and anxiety for patients receiving medications and hydration via IV delivery, while providing a safer work environment for healthcare providers conducting blood draws.
“We are honored to be working with Intermountain, an innovative and visionary organization that is widely recognized for the delivery of the highest quality patient care,” said Eric M. Stone, co-founder and CEO of Velano Vascular. “The results of our collective efforts have the potential to dramatically improve the healing experience, making essential healthcare safer, more cost effective, and more compassionate for everyone involved.”
About Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based, not-for-profit system of 22 hospitals, 185 clinics, a Medical Group with some 1,300 employed physicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit intermountainhealthcare.org, read our blogs at intermountainhealthcare.org/blogs, connect with us on Twitter at twitter.com/intermountain and on Facebook at facebook.com/intermountain.
About Velano Vascular
Velano Vascular technologies transform patient care by enhancing the blood-draw experience during hospitalization. The company’s innovative medical technologies aim to reduce the pain and discomfort associated with these procedures for patients while improving safety and efficiency for providers. Founded by a patient advocate and a physician, Velano Vascular is backed by First Round Capital, Kapor Capital, Safeguard Scientifics, White Owl Capital, Griffin Hospital, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and several health-industry veterans. Velano Vascular’s clinical collaborators include several of the leading hospital systems in the United States. More information is available at www.velanovascular.com
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