Automated pharmaceutical management and dispensing system

• US 20020095238A1
• Filed: 12/29/2000
• Published: 07/18/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omnicell Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nextrx Corporation
• Inventors: Wilson, John R., Smith, Michael F., Wilson, Ronald H., Ahlin, Arnold C., Ahlin, Marilynn
• Granted Patent: US 6,604,019 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/243
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 11/62 in which the articles are stored in compartments in fixed receptacles
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/0092 for assembling and dispensing of pharmaceutical articles medical dispensers for private use, A61J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/069 by box-like containers, e.g. videocassettes, books
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/02 Devices for alarm or indication, e.g. when empty; Advertising arrangements in coin-freed apparatus alarms or warning devices indicating the interruption of flow to be metered G07F15/10
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/13 delivered from dispensers
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation

Abstract

The system for automatically dispensing medications or other medical elements includes several groupings, i.e. vaults, of storage members, each vault containing approximately 100 individual cartridges, which each contain packages of unit-of-use doses of a given medication or other medical supply, such as syringes. Each storage member includes an ejector which ejects selected medications/supplies to a supply trough. The packages in the trough are moved to a central collator, which dispenses them to a bin receptacle which has been moved underneath the collator and which is typically identified with a particular patient. Information concerning medications/supplies for a particular patient is stored in a system database and used to determine the particular medications/supplies dispensed into a given bin. Bar coding is used to maintain control over the bins, and the medications, forming a closed information/control system. Particular medications and/or supplies which are not available in the automatic dispensing system are supplied from a supplemental medications cart which has been previously stocked with the correct additional medications by virtue of information from a control computer. The filled bins are transferred to a medication cart which can only be accessed as a result of a command signal after a particular patient and his/her associated bin have been matched. A nurse, having access to the correct bin and sector thereof, removes the medications from the cart and administers them to the patient.

Claims

1. A medication cart for securing and dispensing medical elements, including medications, comprising:

a cart housing;

rotatable support means within the housing for at least one stack of medical element bins, each bin being divided into a number of sectors;

means for indexing and tracking rotation of the bins so that the rotational position of the bins relative to a home position is always known;

means for preventing unauthorized access to the interior of the housing and the bins;

means for stopping the rotatable support means, after rotational movement thereof has been initiated by an operator, at a rotational position such that a desired bin is accessible when the housing is opened; and

means, in response to a command signal, for opening the housing to permit access to the desired bin and any medical elements therein.

2. An apparatus of claim 1, wherein the housing includes a plurality of movable access doors, each door being uniquely associated with an individual bin in the stack of bins.

3. An apparatus of claim 1, wherein said stack of bins comprises at least eight individual bins, and wherein the cart includes at least two stacks of bins.

4. An apparatus of claim 1, including means for displaying information concerning said selected patients, including selected medications to be administered to said patient.

5. An apparatus of claim 1, including means on the cart for holding a bar code scanning device so that identifying information on the bins and any packaged medications therein can be conveniently scanned by an operator.

6. A medication cart for dispensing medical elements, including medications, in a healthcare facility, comprising:

a portable medical elements cart;

means within the cart for storing medical elements; and

means on the cart for holding a scanning device used for identifying medical elements such that an operator can scan a particular item without holding the scanner;

dispenser and to be contacted by an ejector in order to dispense the overjacket package, the overjacket package further including a perforated seam around at least a portion of the box member that allows the single unit-of-use medical element to be removed from the overjacket package by breaking the perforated seam.

one or more overjacket packages;

prescription are dispensed; and