Pass-through wall-mounted medications cabinet and system

• US 8,160,741 B1
• Filed: 12/15/2010
• Issued: 04/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: S&S X-Ray Products Inc.
• Original Assignee: S&S X-Ray Products Inc.
• Inventors: Shoenfeld, Norman A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Collins, Michael K
• Application Number:
  US12/968,340
• Time in Patent Office: 489 Days
• Field of Search: 700231-244, 312/4, 312/209, 221/92, 221/282
• US Class Current: 700/237
• CPC Class Codes: A47B 2200/01 Office wall with desktop function
• CPC Class Codes: A47B 96/00 Details of cabinets, racks or shelf units not covered by a single one of groups A47B43/00 - A47B95/00; General details of furniture doors E06B

Abstract

A pass-through medications cabinet is built into a wall of a hospital room and can be accessed from the room interior or from the hallway. A frame mounted in the wall supports a rack or box containing patient drawers or bins, arranged in a vertical stack parallel to the wall or in a horizontal row. There is a hall-side door that can be opened by pharmacy staff to place pre-loaded bins into respective compartments, and one or more room-side doors or drawers that may be opened by nurse staff for administering the medications to patients. The hallway door and room doors interlock to prevent their being opened at the same time to safeguard patient privacy. The system maintains an audit trail of access to the bins.

Claims

1. A pass-through medications cabinet adapted to be mounted in a wall of a patient room, the wall separating the patient room from a hallway common to a plurality of hospital rooms;

the cabinet comprising;

an enclosure frame mounted in the wall and disposed at an elevated position above a floor of said room and having a room side that may be opened to the patient room and a hallway side that may be opened to said hallway;

a plurality of racks supported in said frame, the racks being disposed in a stack one above another and oriented laterally in said frame;

a plurality of medication bins disposed respectively in said racks;

a first door located on the hallway side of the cabinet and hinged onto said enclosure frame, the first door being openable to access a plurality of said racks;

a plurality of second doors located on the room side of said cabinet and each positioned over a respective one of said racks, each of said second doors being openable to access a medication bin in the respective rack; and

controllable door lock means associated with each of said first door and said second doors, said door lock means permitting said first door to be opened only when all of said second doors are closed, and permitting said second doors to be opened only when said first door is closed, and including an interlock for said second doors permitting said second doors to be opened only one door at a time such that only one medications bin can be accessed at a time from the room side.

2. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 1 wherein said controllable door lock means includes an electronic latch for said first door actuable by an access device, and second door latch means for opening said second doors and actuable by a second access device, said second access device not being operative to open the electronic latch for said first door.

3. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 1, wherein said frame is substantially flush with said wall on the hallway side, so as not to project into said hallway.

4. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 1, wherein said racks and said respective bins lie parallel to said wall.

5. A pass-through medications cabinet adapted to be mounted in a wall of a patient room, the wall separating the patient room from a hallway common to a plurality of patient rooms, the cabinet comprising;

an enclosure frame mounted in the wall and disposed at an elevated position above a floor of said room and having a room side that may be opened to the patient room and a hallway side that may be opened to said hallway;

a box mounted to one lateral side of said enclosure frame, leaving an access space within the remaining lateral side of said enclosure frame, and including a plurality of medication drawers situated one above the other in said box and disposed laterally to pull out from said box into said access space within said enclosure frame;

a first door located on the hallway side of the cabinet and hinged onto said enclosure frame, the first door being openable to said access space within said enclosure frame;

at least one second door located on the room side of said cabinet and positioned to cover said access space and being openable from within said patient room to access said pull-out medication drawers;

controllable door lock means associated with said first and second doors, said door lock means permitting said first door to be opened only when said second door is closed and permitting said second door to be opened only when said first door is closed; and

controlled access means permitting said medications drawers to be pulled out one at a time only when accessed from said room side.

6. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 5, wherein each of said medication drawers can be pulled out and detached from said medication cabinet box for administration of medication to a patient, and can then be re-inserted into said box and pushed back into place.

7. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 6, wherein said box includes a swing-down shelf mounted on the room side of the box and which pivots between a raised position in which the shelf is disposed vertical and substantially flush with a proximal side of the box, and a lowered, horizontal position suitable for supporting the medications drawer during administration of said medications.

8. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 5 wherein said second door includes a transverse shelf at a lower portion thereof adapted for storing non-medication materials.

9. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 5, wherein said medication drawers lie parallel to said wall.

10. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 5, wherein said first door is substantially flush with said wall on the hallway side thereof.

11. A pass-through medications cabinet adapted to be mounted in a wall of a patient room, the wall separating the patient room from a hallway common to a plurality of hospital rooms;

the cabinet comprising;

an enclosure frame mounted in the wall and disposed at an elevated position above a floor of the room and having a room side that is accessible from the patient room and a hallway side that may be opened to said hallway;

a plurality of pull-out patient bins supported in respective racks in said enclosure frame, and disposed in a row oriented across said enclosure frame;

a first door located on the hallway side of the cabinet and hinged onto said enclosure frame, the first door being openable to access said racks from the hallway side;

controllable door lock means associated with said first door for locking said first door closed and permitting it to open only to an authorized access means possessed by authorized persons; and

controllable drawer lock means for locking said pull-out bins to prevent access from the interior of the patient room, but permitting authorized care staff when in the interior of the room to unlock and pull out a respective one of the pull-out bins.

12. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 11 wherein said controllable drawer lock means includes latch means for releasing said pull-out drawer, and being responsive to an access device possessed by said authorized care staff.

13. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 12 wherein said controllable drawer lock means includes drawer sensors to detect if the pull-out bins have been pulled out or pushed in, and operative to prevent any of the medications bins to be pulled out until all the bins have been pushed back in place into the cabinet.

14. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 11 wherein said frame is substantially flush with said wall on one of said room side and said hallway side.

15. The pass-through medications cabinet of claim 11 wherein said first door is in the form of a lid disposed horizontally and which may be lifted for access to said plurality of bins.