Systems and methods for tracking pharmaceuticals within a facility
First Claim
1. An apparatus for tracking medical products, each of the medical products having a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag uniquely associated therewith, the apparatus comprising:
- a casing comprising a compartment for receiving one or more medical products therein;
a reader for reading the RFID tags associated with the medical products in the compartment; and
a processor coupled to the reader for receiving and processing readings of the RFID tags in the compartment to identify the medical products in the compartment.
4 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A medication-dispensing unit is provided for tracking medical products having a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag uniquely associated therewith. The dispensing unit includes compartments for receiving medical products therein, and readers for reading the RFID tags associated with the medical products in the compartments. A processor is coupled to the readers for receiving and processing readings of the RFID tags in the compartment to identify the medical products in the compartments. The processor may identify a medical product removed from a compartment by determining a difference between readings of the RFID tags in the compartment taken before and after the medical product is removed from the compartment. The processor may verify that the medical product removed from the compartment is authorized to be removed or confirm that an identified patient is intended to receive the medical product being removed from the compartment.
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Citations
27 Claims
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1. An apparatus for tracking medical products, each of the medical products having a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag uniquely associated therewith, the apparatus comprising:
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a casing comprising a compartment for receiving one or more medical products therein;
a reader for reading the RFID tags associated with the medical products in the compartment; and
a processor coupled to the reader for receiving and processing readings of the RFID tags in the compartment to identify the medical products in the compartment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for monitoring medical products stored in a medication-dispensing unit, each of the medical products comprising a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag uniquely associated therewith, the method comprising:
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removing a medical product from the dispensing unit;
identifying the medical product removed from the dispensing unit by detecting removal of the RFID tag associated with the medical product removed from the dispensing unit; and
verifying that the medical product removed from the dispensing unit is authorized to be removed from the dispensing unit. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method for monitoring removal of medical products stored in a medication-dispensing unit, each of the medical products comprising a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag uniquely associated therewith, the method comprising:
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reading the RFID tags of the medical products in the dispensing unit before removing one or more medical products from the dispensing unit;
removing one or more medical products from the dispensing unit;
reading the RFID tags of the medical products in the dispensing unit after the one or more medical products are removed from the dispensing unit; and
determining a difference between the readings of the RFID tags taken before and after the one or more medical products are removed from the dispensing unit to identify the one or more medical products removed from the dispensing unit. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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Specification