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Views: 55 Author: DERUK Publish Time: 2026-10-13 Origin: Site
A failed stick is not a single expense. It is the first step in an escalation cascade, and every step adds cost.
Wasted supplies and labor. Each additional attempt consumes catheters, supplies, and nursing time—driving direct, repeated spend.
Diverted staff. When a stick fails and a second nurse or vascular-access specialist is called, escalation commonly adds 30 to 60 minutes of delay.
Unnecessary PICC lines. Difficult access is a frequent reason patients are escalated to PICC placement, at significant cost per line.
Catheter-related infections. More central lines mean more infection risk. Each catheter-related bloodstream infection carries a substantial attributable cost—and is typically absorbed fully by the hospital.
Patient experience and reimbursement. Repeated sticks erode patient satisfaction. Lower satisfaction scores can put a meaningful share of reimbursement at risk under value-based payment models.
None of these appear under "difficult IV access" in a budget. Added together across a year, they are substantial.
Recent research shows the scale. In an analysis of emergency department data, the economic burden of difficult IV access reached approximately $84.29 per affected patient**, up to **$890,095 per year for a single emergency department, and roughly $2.68 billion nationally.
And that is only the emergency department. The same drivers play out in med-surg, oncology and infusion, dialysis, imaging, and the ICU—which is why the total footprint across a hospital is larger than most teams assume.
National averages make the case, but a budget conversation needs your numbers. The good news: the cost is built from inputs you already track.
Your bed count, occupancy rate, and the share of patients who need an IV
How often IVs are restarted
Your current average number of stick attempts per placement
Your cost per attempt, nursing cost per hour, and PICC and infection costs
Multiply those together, and the annual cost of difficult access stops being abstract. To skip the spreadsheet, the DERUK Hospital ROI Calculator does the math for you: enter your facility's assumptions and it returns your estimated annual cost, potential savings, and payback period.
To show the scale, DERUK's hospital business case models a 100-bed facility at 90% occupancy, 90% of patients requiring an IV, a 3-day change cycle, and one device per four beds. In that model, the annual savings break down like this:
Reduced stick attempts: approximately $353,382
Nursing efficiency from fewer escalations: approximately $73,950
PICC line avoidance: approximately $48,068
Catheter-related infection prevention: approximately $106,728
Total annual savings: approximately $582,128
Against a modeled device investment of roughly $75,000**, that is a net first-year savings near **$507,128 and a payback of about 1.5 months. These are modeled estimates drawn from published studies, not a guarantee for any specific facility. Your own inputs will speak directly to you and your operations.
The cost of difficult access is driven by extra attempts, so the lever is first-attempt success. Studies show near-infrared vein visualization can reduce the average number of IV attempts from about 2.3 to 1.18—a roughly 49% reduction—with the strongest results in pediatric and difficult-access patients.
DERUK's vein visualization device projects a real-time map of the patient's veins directly onto the skin, so the clinician can see vein location, size, and patency before the needle touches the patient.
Fewer attempts ripple outward into the same cost drivers, in reverse: less supply waste, fewer escalations, fewer access-driven PICC lines, and fewer chances for infection. There are further costs the direct model does not capture, including extended stays from PICC complications and preanalytical lab errors. You can review the full body of research on our evidence for vein visualization page, and see how facilities apply it on our vein finders for hospitals page.
Difficult IV access is a quiet, recurring cost—and the first step to managing it is measuring it. Start with your own facility's figures, model the annual burden, and look at what improving first-attempt success could return. When you are ready, request a personalized price quote or reserve a free evaluation trial to try DERUK on your own patients before you commit. The cost of difficult access is already in your budget. The question is how much of it you can recover.
