Pharmacy workflow management system including plural counters
First Claim
1. A prescription fulfillment system which counts manually-poured tablets and tablets fed from a cassette, comprising:
- a housing;
an upright chute mounted with respect to the housing through which objects fall into the housing;
a first automatic tablet counter within the housing which receives tablets from the chute and counts plural tablets simultaneously moving past a sensor;
a cassette dispenser integrated with the system having a cassette mount which positions a cassette mounted thereon to feed tablets to the chute and first automatic tablet counter;
a cassette dispenser drive system which powers a mounted cassette to feed tablets therefrom;
a second automatic object tablet counter which counts single tablets moving past a sensor fed from a mounted cassette; and
a data processing platform within the housing operatively connected to the first and second automatic tablet counters and the cassette dispenser drive system, the data processing platform being operative to;
receive and store data for a plurality of prescriptions;
retrieve data for fulfillment of a user-selected stored prescription, the data including a required tablet type and a required quantity;
verify that a user-selected container or cassette contains the required type of tablet,if the required tablets are in the cassette, activate the cassette dispenser drive system to feed the required tablets from the mounted cassette to the first and second automatic tablet counters, deactivate the cassette dispenser drive system once the count of the second automatic tablet counter equals the required quantity;
maintain the count of the first automatic tablet counter for the tablets poured from the user-selected container or fed from the cassette past said first automatic tablet counter; and
indicate the count of the first automatic tablet counter.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A pharmacy workflow management system including plural counters and a pharmacy workflow management method. In embodiments, the system includes a housing, a first automatic object counter and a cassette dispenser which feeds objects from a cassette mounted thereto to the first object counter. A second object counter counts objects fed from a cassette mounted to the cassette dispenser. A data processing platform within the housing is programmed with instructions that enable the system to compare the counts from the first and second object counters. The data processing platform also provides for management of pharmacy workflow by providing improved control of prescription fulfillment.
156 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A prescription fulfillment system which counts manually-poured tablets and tablets fed from a cassette, comprising:
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a housing; an upright chute mounted with respect to the housing through which objects fall into the housing; a first automatic tablet counter within the housing which receives tablets from the chute and counts plural tablets simultaneously moving past a sensor; a cassette dispenser integrated with the system having a cassette mount which positions a cassette mounted thereon to feed tablets to the chute and first automatic tablet counter; a cassette dispenser drive system which powers a mounted cassette to feed tablets therefrom; a second automatic object tablet counter which counts single tablets moving past a sensor fed from a mounted cassette; and a data processing platform within the housing operatively connected to the first and second automatic tablet counters and the cassette dispenser drive system, the data processing platform being operative to; receive and store data for a plurality of prescriptions; retrieve data for fulfillment of a user-selected stored prescription, the data including a required tablet type and a required quantity; verify that a user-selected container or cassette contains the required type of tablet, if the required tablets are in the cassette, activate the cassette dispenser drive system to feed the required tablets from the mounted cassette to the first and second automatic tablet counters, deactivate the cassette dispenser drive system once the count of the second automatic tablet counter equals the required quantity; maintain the count of the first automatic tablet counter for the tablets poured from the user-selected container or fed from the cassette past said first automatic tablet counter; and indicate the count of the first automatic tablet counter. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A pharmacy workflow management system including automatic tablet counters, comprising:
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a housing; a first automatic tablet counter within the housing; a cassette dispenser having a cassette mount which positions a cassette mounted thereon to feed tablets to the first automatic tablet counter; a cassette dispenser drive system which powers a mounted cassette to feed tablets therefrom; a second automatic tablet counter which counts tablets fed from a mounted cassette; and a data processing platform within the housing programmed with instructions that, when executed, perform a method of pharmacy workflow management, the method comprising; receiving data for a plurality of prescriptions; storing the received data for the prescriptions; retrieving the data for one of the stored prescriptions for fulfillment, the data including a type of tablet and a tablet quantity; verifying that a user-selected container or cassette contains the required type of tablet, if the required tablets are in the cassette, activating the cassette dispenser drive system to feed the tablets from the mounted cassette to the first and second automatic tablet counters, and deactivating the cassette dispenser drive system once the count of the second automatic tablet counter equals the quantity; maintaining the count of the first automatic tablet counter for the tablets poured from the user-selected container or fed from the cassette past the first automatic tablet counter; indicating the count of the first automatic tablet counter; and creating a record that the quantity of tablets required by the retrieved data for the prescription has been counted. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A pharmacy workflow management system including an integrated automatic tablet counter, comprising:
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a housing; a code reader; a display; an upright chute mounted with respect to the housing through which tablets are manually poured into the housing; an automatic tablet counter within the housing which counts the tablets; and a data processing platform within the housing, the tablet counter and data processing platform being interfaced together and contained within the housing such that the housing, tablet counter and data processing platform comprise an integrated unit, the data processing platform being programmed with instructions that, when executed, perform a method of pharmacy workflow management, the method comprising the steps of; (a) receiving a plurality of prescriptions; (b) storing the received prescriptions; (c) retrieving one of the stored prescriptions for fulfillment; (d) displaying the retrieved prescription on the display together with information identifying an item required for fulfillment of the prescription; (e) if the prescription-required item is a quantity of manually-pourable tablets which require counting, then (i) reading with the code reader a code associated with a user-selected container of the prescription-required item; (ii) verifying that the user-selected container contains the prescription-required item; (iii) counting with the tablet counter the quantity of tablets manually poured from the verified container; (iv) creating a record with the data processing platform that the retrieved prescription was fulfilled; and (v) repeating step (c) and the subsequent steps for the next prescription; and (f) if the prescription-required item does not require counting, then (i) reading with the code reader a code associated with a user-selected container of the prescription-required item; and (ii) verifying that the user-selected container contains the prescription-required item; (iv) creating a record with the data processing platform that the retrieved prescription was fulfilled; (v) repeating step (c) and the subsequent steps for the next prescription. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A system for feeding and counting discrete objects, comprising:
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a first automatic object counter which counts plural objects simultaneously moving past a sensor; a cassette dispenser having a cassette mount which positions a cassette mounted thereon to feed discrete objects to the first automatic object counter; a cassette dispenser drive system which powers a mounted cassette to feed objects therefrom; a second automatic object counter which counts single objects moving past a sensor fed from a mounted cassette; and a data processing platform which compares counts of the first and second object counters, wherein the first automatic object counter counts objects both fed from the mounted cassette and poured manually while the cassette is mounted.
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Specification