INTELLIGENT REFRIGERATOR FOR STORING PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCT CONTAINERS

• US 20100275625A1
• Filed: 07/08/2010
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC (Merck & Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Merck & Co., Inc.
• Inventors: Lowenstein, Alan J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,756,122 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 62/127
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2400/36 Visual displays
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2700/08 Sensors using Radio Frequency Identification [RFID]
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 2700/12 Sensors measuring the inside temperature
• CPC Class Codes: F25D 29/00 Arrangement or mounting of control or safety devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/0092 for assembling and dispensing of pharmaceutical articles medical dispensers for private use, A61J7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/026 for alarm, monitoring and auditing in vending machines or means for indication, e.g. when empty
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/13 delivered from dispensers
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass

Abstract

Intelligent refrigerator system for storing pharmaceutical product containers, such as vials, ampules, syringes, bottles, medication tubes, blister packs and cartons, at the point of dispensing. Embodiments of the invention use product identification technology, such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and readers, to uniquely identify containers as they are added to or removed from the cold storage compartment of the refrigerator, and automatically retrieve from a local or remote database a variety of details associated with the containers and their contents, such as manufacturing data, expiration dates, time out of refrigeration, inventory levels, safety information, usage statistics, known contraindications and warnings, etc. If the details indicate that there is a problem with a particular pharmaceutical (e.g., that it is counterfeit, expired, suspect, spoiled, recalled or almost depleted), then a message or warning is automatically delivered to a human operator via an attached output device, such as a display screen, speaker or printer. Embodiments of the invention may also be configured to monitor and report temperature faults, power failures and other anomalies associated with the refrigerator or cold storage compartment.

Claims

1. A refrigerator, comprising:

a cold storage compartment configured to hold a plurality of pharmaceutical product containers;

a local database for storing information associated with the plurality of pharmaceutical product containers located in the cold storage compartment;

an RFID reader configured to determine a unique identifier for a pharmaceutical product container added to the cold storage compartment based on a radio frequency identification signal produced by the added pharmaceutical product container; and

a processor configured to determine, based on the information in the local database and the unique identifier, (i) whether the added pharmaceutical product container was previously removed from the cold storage compartment, (ii) a length of time elapsed since the added pharmaceutical product container was previously removed from the cold storage compartment, and (iii) an updated total length of time that the added pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment;

wherein the processor is further configured to modify the information in the local database to include the length of time elapsed since the added pharmaceutical product container was removed and the updated total length of time that added pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment.

2. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to cause a message concerning the added pharmaceutical product container to be delivered to a human operator, the message including at least one of:

the unique identifier, the length of time elapsed since the added pharmaceutical product container was previously removed from the cold storage compartment or the updated total length of time that the added pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment.

3. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein the processor causes the message to be delivered to the human operator via at least one of:

an information store, a log file, an attached output device, an email communication program, a web page server, or an online information publication service.

4. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein:

the processor is electronically coupled to a clock configured to provide a current date;

the information in the local database is includes a record specifying an expiration date for the added pharmaceutical product container; and

the processor is further configured to (i) determine an expiration status for the added pharmaceutical product container by comparing the current date to the expiration date, and (ii) cause a warning to be delivered to the human operator concerning the expiration status of the pharmaceutical product container.

5. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein:

the information in the local database includes a record specifying a maximum time out of refrigeration value for the added pharmaceutical product container; and

the processor is further configured to (i) determine a spoliation status for the pharmaceutical product container by comparing the updated total length of time to the maximum time out of refrigeration value, and (ii) cause a warning to be delivered to the human operator concerning the spoliation status of the pharmaceutical product container.

6. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein:

the processor is electronically coupled to a clock configured to provide a current time;

the information in the local database comprises a record for storing (i) a removal time indicating a time that the added pharmaceutical product was previously removed from the cold storage compartment, and (ii) a prior total length of time that the added pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment; and

the processor determines the updated total length of time that the pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment by retrieving the current time from the clock, retrieving the removal time and the old total length of time from the local database, subtracting the removal time from the current time to obtain a duration, and adding the duration to the prior total length of time.

7. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein if the processor determines that the added pharmaceutical product container was not previously removed from the cold storage compartment, then the processor will cause the time that the added pharmaceutical product container was added to the cold storage compartment to be recorded in the local database.

8. The refrigerator of claim 7, further comprising:

an interface to a pharmaceutical product database;

wherein the processor is further configured to (i) determine whether the pharmaceutical product database contains a set of details associated with the unique identifier, and (ii) cause a copy of the set of details to be copied from the pharmaceutical product database to the local database via the interface.

9. The refrigerator of claim 8, wherein if the processor determines that the pharmaceutical product database does not contain a set of details associated with the unique identifier, then the processor will create a record in the local database indicating that the authenticity of the pharmaceutical product container is suspect.

10. The refrigerator of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to cause a warning to be delivered to the human operator concerning the suspect authenticity of the pharmaceutical product container.

11. The refrigerator of claim 1, wherein:

the cold storage compartment includes a temperature sensor that measures the temperature in the cold storage compartment; and

the processor periodically compares the temperature in the cold storage compartment to a specified temperature setting and delivers a warning message to the human operator if the temperature in the cold storage compartment differs from the specified temperature setting.

12. A refrigerator for storing pharmaceutical product containers, comprising:

a cold storage compartment configured to hold a plurality of pharmaceutical product containers;

an RFID reader configured to determine a unique identifier for a pharmaceutical product container located inside the cold storage compartment based on a radio frequency identification signal emitted by a transponder affixed to the pharmaceutical product container;

a local database comprising a record correlating the unique identifier with a prior total time out of refrigeration value for the pharmaceutical product container;

a power fail circuit for detecting a power failure condition for the refrigerator; and

a processor, electronically coupled to the RFID reader, the local database and the power fail circuit, that determines a duration for the power fail condition, calculates a new total time out of refrigeration value for the pharmaceutical product container by adding the duration to the prior total time out of refrigeration value, and stores the new total time out of refrigeration value in the local database.

13. The refrigerator of claim 12, wherein the processor is further configured cause a message concerning the power failure condition to be delivered to a human operator via one or more of an information store, a log file, an attached output device, an email communication, a web page server, and an online information publication service.

14. A refrigerator, comprising:

a cold storage compartment configured to hold a plurality of pharmaceutical product containers;

an RFID reader configured to determine a plurality of unique identifiers for the plurality pharmaceutical containers located inside the cold storage compartment based on a respective plurality of radio frequency identification signals produced by the plurality of pharmaceutical product containers;

a local database comprising records correlating the plurality of unique identifiers with a plurality of details associated with the plurality of pharmaceutical product containers located in the cold storage compartment; and

a processor configured to determine, based on the plurality of unique identifiers and the plurality of details in the local database, whether a pharmaceutical product container has been removed from the cold storage compartment;

wherein the processor is configured to (i) record in the local database the time that the pharmaceutical product container was removed from the cold storage compartment, and (ii) cause a message to be delivered to a human operator indicating that the pharmaceutical product container was removed from the cold storage compartment.

15. The refrigerator of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to determine, based on the unique identifier and the plurality of details in the local database, an expiration status for the pharmaceutical product container removed from the cold storage compartment, and cause a message concerning the expiration status to be delivered to the human operator.

16. The refrigerator of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to determine, based on the unique identifier and the plurality of details in the local database, a recall status for the pharmaceutical product container removed from the cold storage compartment, and cause a message concerning the recall status to be delivered to the human operator.

17. The refrigerator of claim 14, wherein:

the plurality of details in the local database comprises a record indicating a total time out of refrigeration value for the pharmaceutical product container; and

the processor is further configured to determine, based on the total time out of refrigeration value, a spoliation status for the pharmaceutical product container removed from the cold storage compartment, and cause a message concerning the spoliation status to be delivered to the human operator.

18. The refrigerator of claim 14, wherein:

the cold storage compartment includes a temperature sensor that measures the temperature in the cold storage compartment; and

the processor periodically compares the temperature measured by the temperature sensor to a specified temperature value and, if the temperature differs from the specified temperature value, generates an alert concerning the temperature.

19. A refrigerator for pharmaceutical products, comprising:

a cold storage compartment configured to hold a plurality of pharmaceutical product containers configured to produce a plurality of RFID signals, respectively;

an RFID reader;

a local database;

an interface to a pharmaceutical product database; and

a processor;

wherein the processor is operable with the RFID reader, the local database and the interface to periodically perform the following steps (a) through (d) for each pharmaceutical product container located inside the cold storage compartment,

(a) determine a unique identifier for said each pharmaceutical product container based on the RFID signal emitted therefrom,

(b) determine if the local database includes a set of details associated with the unique identifier,

(c) if the local database does not include the set of details, attempt to copy the set of details from the pharmaceutical product database to the local database via the interface, and

(d) deliver a warning message to a human operator if the attempt to copy the set of details from the pharmaceutical product database to the local database via the interface is not successful.

20. The refrigerator of claim 19, wherein:

the cold storage compartment includes a temperature sensor that measures the temperature in the cold storage compartment; and

the processor is further configured to (i) periodically compare the temperature in the cold storage compartment to a specified temperature setting, and (ii) deliver a warning message to a human operator if the temperature in the cold storage compartment differs from the specified temperature setting.

21. The refrigerator of claim 19, wherein:

the set of details associated with each unique identifier includes a total time out of refrigeration value and a specified maximum time out of refrigeration value; and

the processor is further configured to periodically perform the following steps (e) and (f) for each pharmaceutical product container located inside the cold storage compartment, based on each unique identifier,

(e) compare the total time out of refrigeration value to the specified maximum time out of refrigeration value, and

(f) deliver a warning to a human operator if the total time out of refrigeration value exceeds the specified maximum time out of refrigeration value.

22. The refrigerator of claim 21, further comprising:

a power fail circuit for detecting a power failure condition in the refrigerator;

wherein the processor is further configured to periodically determine a duration for the power fail condition, calculate a new total time out of refrigeration value for each pharmaceutical product container in the cold storage compartment by adding the duration to the total time out of refrigeration value for the pharmaceutical product container, and store the new total time out of refrigeration value for the pharmaceutical product container in the local database.