Christie Medical Holdings’ Philanthropy Program, Christie CARES, Makes Significant Donation of VeinViewer® Devices

MEMPHIS, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Christie Medical Holdings, Inc. today announced the company recently made a donation of three VeinViewer^® devices to the Vannie E. Cook Jr. Children’s Cancer and Hematology Clinic as part of the Christie CARES program.

“We are proud to honor Daniela by donating three units to the clinic so that they may continue to utilize the technology and provide better care for their patients.”

Begun in November 2011, Christie CARES is an initiative aimed at focusing on community involvement and philanthropy by the company as a whole, as well as by individual employees. Additionally, the company and staff organize and participate in fundraising projects and events that are important to Christie employees.

In 2007, Daniela Villarreal, a leukemia patient at Vannie E. Cook, led a letter-writing campaign to raise funds for a VeinViewer device for the clinic after being introduced to the technology while receiving a bone marrow transplant at Texas Children’s Hospital. Villarreal was able to raise the money for the vein finder device, and after five years of use, it simply needed repair. After recently learning about the clinic’s needs, Christie staff decided to honor Villarreal by donating three new VeinViewer units to the clinic.

“We were inspired by Daniela’s campaign more than five years ago to bring the VeinViewer device to the Vannie E. Cook clinic, and it’s patients like her that inspired us to give back to the community through Christie CARES,” said Valorie Kimbrell, Clinical Research Specialist and organizer for Christie CARES. “We are proud to honor Daniela by donating three units to the clinic so that they may continue to utilize the technology and provide better care for their patients.” Each unit is equipped with a plaque recognizing Daniela.

Through conversations with customers, the Christie CARES team recognized a trend in requests for education opportunities, which led Christie to donate a number of VeinViewer devices to nursing schools, highlighting Christie’s commitment to the training and continued education of America’s future nurses. The technology has proven to be an excellent educational tool, allowing nurses more opportunity to hone their skills. They are able to increase their knowledge and practice identifying vessels and valves through VeinViewer’s technologies and more quickly gain the confidence that can take years to build.

Beyond the donation of VeinViewer devices for educational purposes and organizations like the Belizean Government Hospital System, Christie CARES organizes an annual food drive for the Mid-South Food Bank and participates in and raises money for the Ronald McDonald House Charities^® of Memphis’ annual C.A.M.P Wishing Well Mad Science Day. Christie will continue to further support these causes as the CARES initiative grows.

Christie plans to continue building the CARES program by organizing new philanthropic initiatives, continuing to participate in and expand established projects and finding ways to recognize the charitable efforts of individual employees.

VeinViewer is the only direct-projection vein illumination device clinically proven to improve peripheral vascular access while reducing the number of sticks and greatly improving patient satisfaction*. Christie now boasts three product offerings, including the VeinViewer Vision, VeinViewer Vision^XTND and VeinViewer Flex. All VeinViewer products include AVIN™ (Active Vascular Imaging Navigation), which is utilized in pre, during and post-vascular access.

VeinViewer provides a number of benefits to practitioners and patients, from easing the process during a pediatric blood draw to improving vascular access for a cancer patient. Patients and practitioners will see improvement in vascular access procedures, patient outcomes and cost savings. Evidence demonstrates that VeinViewer increases successful vascular access, reducing pain and increasing patient satisfaction. Among the benefits that practitioners can expect are improvements in patient throughput; a reduction in secondary procedures and treatment delays; and an increase in referrals and revenue.

To learn more about VeinViewer, please visit www.veinviewer.com.

*Statistical references available upon request.

About Christie Medical Holdings Inc.

Christie Medical Holdings Inc. is a global company based in Memphis, Tenn., that discovers, develops and commercializes medical technologies. The company’s market-leading product, VeinViewer^®, is a mobile vascular imaging system that allows health care providers to clearly see accessible vasculature in real time, directly on the surface of the skin. Christie Medical Holdings Inc. is owned by Christie Digital Systems Inc., a global visual technologies company and a subsidiary of Ushio Inc., Japan (JP:6925). For more information on Christie Digital Systems or Christie Medical Holdings, visit www.christiedigital.com.