Press Release - Building a better blood draw

For Immediate Release - Monday, March 17, 2014


Can M. Gail Stotler Convince Medicine to Retire the Tourniquet and End Blood Draw Injuries?

E. Alton, IL. - The modern blood draw methods date back to bloodletting techniques performed by battlefield barbers in the 19th Century. The researchers keep tweaking the tools, and even adding new tools (i.e. the IV pump, the vein finder tool), and some on working in a porcupine quill needle template, and others on a robot that can perform these procedures, but still each year millions of people are injured by IVs, blood donations and routine blood draws. In 2008 alone, there were an estimated 174 million ‘vein access failure’ in US hospitals – ‘estimated’ because no body formally tracks failures. Damages range from bruises and botched samples to disabling nerve injuries and even amputations.

After an intense 20-year study of these vein access procedures, which includes vein anatomy, RN Gail Stotler believes she has a solution. But to get labs, nursing, and radiology to accept it she first must debunk a cherished ritual from the 1800s—the use of a tourniquet.

Bloodletting required the use of the tourniquet to prevent patients from ‘bleeding to death’. As the practice evolved, when the needle was invented and the razor/scalpel was put aside, no one questioned the continued use of the ‘rubber hose’. But Stotler found the tourniquet itself causes an artificial distention of the vein, leading to failed sticks, vein ruptures, and an array of injuries.

The solution is low-tech. Stotler’s Illinois-based Vein Access Technologies has already trained more than 1500 vein access techs in careful palpation and grading of the vein, without use of a tourniquet. The new method results in successful one-stick event 95-99% of the time.

Stotler’s aim is to transform blood draw technique worldwide--but will the medical establishment be willing to do away with a time-honored tradition? “For 1600 hundred years a tourniquet has been used.” says Stotler. “Patients are thrilled to discover that their procedure could be done without a tourniquet, or a snug one if needed.” It was causing pain before the needle was even inserted.

To learn more about Gail Stotler’s crusade to prevent injury and reform an antiquated medical practice, please contact:

Kenneathia Williams, Vein Access Technologies V.A.T. #2 Terminal Drive, Suite 1, E. Alton, IL 62024.

www.VATmethod.com kenneathia@vatmethod.com or (618) 659.0149

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