In medical training, thermochromic ink can be used to imitate human blood because it shares its color changing property. It is currently being tested in medical simulations involving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). In these procedures, a change in color of blood between a dark and light red indicates blood oxygenation and blood deoxygenation, which describes the oxygen concentration levels within a persons blood sample. Its important to accurately identify this change in order to safely and correctly operate the ECMO machines. This has led to simulation-based trainings (SBT) which allows medical students to run simulations that mimic real ECMO machines before using them in serious situations. By using thermochromic ink in these simulations, the color changing effect can be realistically copied and observed without using real human blood or other costly methods.
Artificial blood or animal blood is typically used in these simulations; however, there are some advantages in using thermochromic ink as an alternative. It can be reused for multiple simulations with minimal variance in the outcomes and it is more cost effective. There are limitations to using this as the ink does not share any other properties with blood, so its only practical use is to observe the change in color of blood.