Life in the Fast Lane

The Wall Street Journal has announced this year’s winners of the paper’s annual Technology Innovation Awards with the Gold Medal award going to a medical device - the EZ-IO, a bone drill from Vidacare Corporation out of San Antonio, Texas.

The EZ-IO® product system by Vidacare® is basically a small battery-powered device with two beveled, hollow drill-tipped needles specifically designed to provide safe, controlled vascular access via the intraosseous (IO) route to patients of all ages in emergent situations when vascular access is challenging or impossible.

Studies conducted by the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have shown IO access through the tibia provides fast, stable, secure and effective vascular access equivalent to that achieved by the intravenous route. 

The intraosseous space is a specialized area of the vascular system where blood flow is rapid and continues even during shock. Drugs and fluids infused via the intraosseous route reach the central circulation as quickly as those administered through standard IV access.

Recent multi-center trials showed that drugs infused intraosseously through the tibia reached the central circulation in the same concentrations and at the same speeds as drugs administered intravenously. Watch the video demonstrations of humeral infusion and tibial infusion rates.

Certainly the system is simple to use, rapid and a very useful fail-safe in cases of vascular shutdown. Currently we are using the system within the emergency room - but hopefully it will be used in the pre-hospital setting in the near future. 

Click on the guideline image above to see the annotated instruction to EZ-IO use; check out the indications and contraindications and then review the ‘painless’ demonstration videos below….

Tags: EZ-IO, infusion, intraosseous, IO, needle