Unlike with a traditional blood draw, the patient does not see the needle go into the arm nor the tubes of blood. The process takes about two minutes and has a 95% success rate on the first attempt.

Several health systems across the U.S. — including Northwestern Medicine — are gearing up to try a new way of drawing blood: using a robot.

If a patient or research study volunteer is having a blood draw at or near a research facility ... pre-packaged in a small tube, to put blood into a type of "suspended animation," protecting ...