Mobile dispensing system for medical articles

• US 9,135,482 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2014
• Issued: 09/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meps Real-Time, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Meps Real-Time, Inc.
• Inventors: Caputo, Jimmy C., Hussain, Shariq, Shamblin, Jeffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Lim, Steven
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHERWIN, RYAN W
• Application Number:
  US14/210,287
• Publication Number:
  US 20140197954A1
• Time in Patent Office: 551 Days
• Field of Search: 3405721-5729, 340 101- 106, 340/568.1, 340/570, 700/231, 700/242, 312/209, 312/330.1, 312/334.35
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07749 the record carrier being capable of non-contact communication, e.g. constructional details of the antenna of a non-contact smart card
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10178 including auxiliary means for focusing, repeating or boosting the electromagnetic interrogation field comparable booster antennas integrated on the record carrier itself G06K19/07794
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10366 the interrogation device being adapted for miscellaneous applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G16B 50/00 ICT programming tools or database systems specially adapted for bioinformatics
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/13 delivered from dispensers
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/20 relating to practices or guidelines

Abstract

A mobile dispensing cart having a plurality of locked drawers has medical articles stored therein for particular patients. The storage drawers have sizes wherein the resonant frequency of the sizes does not match the frequency of operation of the RFID system of the cart. Faraday cages and enclosures are used in the storage areas that provide robust RFID fields for exciting and reading RFID tags. An HCP for a particular patient obtains access to the drawers and opens a drawer. An RFID scanning system takes an inventory of the cart after the drawer is closed to determine if any medical article was taken, and if so which one. The identified taken article is compared to the data base of medical articles stored in the cart for the patient and if the taken article does not match the patient data base, an alarm is provided.

Claims

1. A management system for managing inventory in a medical cart, the inventory comprising medical articles for dispensing to a particular patient, each of the medical articles being identified by a wireless data carrier which is responsive to electromagnetic energy (EM) of a frequency f1 in response to which the wireless data carrier provides identification data, the management system comprising:

a metallic enclosure having an internal reading area, the metallic enclosure located within the medical cart and having electrically conductive walls that completely surround the internal reading area, the enclosure having a natural frequency of resonance f2 which is different from the frequency f1 to which the data carriers are responsive, the data carriers not being operationally responsive to frequency f2;

a probe disposed at an electrically-conductive wall of the metallic enclosure and configured to inject EM of a frequency f1 into the metallic enclosure, wherein the position of the probe in relation to electrically-conductive walls of the metallic enclosure is selected so that reflected EM of frequency f1 within the metallic enclosure is in phase at the probe position to thereby optimize power transfer at frequency f1 into the enclosure;

an active impedance matching circuit coupled to the probe and configured to actively match more closely impedance of the probe to impedance of the metallic enclosure at frequency f1;

a storage area located within the internal reading area of the metallic enclosure in the cart, the storage area configured to contain medical articles with associated data carriers identifying the medical articles, each data carrier being responsive to EM at frequency f1 but not operationally responsive to frequency f2, the storage area having an access control device that prevents access to the storage area when locked and allows access when unlocked;

a receiving antenna disposed within the metallic enclosure and configured to receive the identification data provided by the data carriers in response to the injected EM;

a processor; and

a non-volatile memory in which is stored a patient data base containing identifications of all medical articles stored in the storage area for use by that patient, and a data base that links a health care provider to the patient;

wherein the processor is programmed to receive a request from a health care provider to have access to the storage area, compare the requesting health care provider to the linked data base to find a patient linked to that health care provider, if a patient is found, compare the linked patient to the patient data base to determine if the storage area contains a medical article for the patient, and unlock the storage area if the health care provider requesting access matches as being assigned to the patient and a medical article is present in the storage area;

wherein after the storage area is re-locked, the processor is programmed to read all medical articles in the storage area to determine if any have been taken, if an article has been identified as taken, the processor is programmed to compare the taken article to the patient data base and if the taken article is not found in the patient data base, to provide an alarm; and

wherein the memory comprises a data base of wireless data carrier identifications linked to medical article data in which one of those medical article data is an expiration date of the respective medical article;

wherein the processor is further programmed to receive the data carrier identification data, access the data base of medical article data corresponding to that data carrier identifications and compare the expiration date of the identified medical articles to a selected date; and

the processor being further programmed to provide a notice if the expiration date of a medical article falls on or before the selected date.

2. A management system for managing inventory in a medical cart, the inventory comprising medical articles for dispensing to a particular patient, each of the medical articles being identified by a wireless data carrier which is responsive to electromagnetic energy (EM) of a frequency f1 in response to which the wireless data carrier provides identification data, the management system comprising:

a metallic enclosure having an internal reading area, the metallic enclosure located within the medical cart and having electrically conductive walls that completely surround the internal reading area, the enclosure having a natural frequency of resonance f2 which is different from the frequency f1 to which the data carriers are responsive, the data carriers not being operationally responsive to frequency f2;

a probe disposed at an electrically-conductive wall of the metallic enclosure and configured to inject EM of a frequency f1 into the metallic enclosure, wherein the position of the probe in relation to electrically-conductive walls of the metallic enclosure is selected so that reflected EM of frequency f1 within the metallic enclosure is in phase at the probe position to thereby optimize power transfer at frequency f1 into the enclosure;

an active impedance matching circuit coupled to the probe and configured to actively match more closely impedance of the probe to impedance of the metallic enclosure at frequency f1;

a storage area located within the internal reading area of the metallic enclosure in the cart, the storage area configured to contain medical articles with associated data carriers identifying the medical articles, each data carrier being responsive to EM at frequency f1 but not operationally responsive to frequency f2, the storage area having an access control device that prevents access to the storage area when locked and allows access when unlocked;

a receiving antenna disposed within the metallic enclosure and configured to receive the identification data provided by the data carriers in response to the injected EM;

a processor; and

a non-volatile memory in which is stored a patient data base containing identifications of all medical articles stored in the storage area for use by that patient, and a data base that links a health care provider to the patient;

wherein the processor is programmed to receive a request from a health care provider to have access to the storage area, compare the requesting health care provider to the linked data base to find a patient linked to that health care provider, if a patient is found, compare the linked patient to the patient data base to determine if the storage area contains a medical article for the patient, and unlock the storage area if the health care provider requesting access matches as being assigned to the patient and a medical article is present in the storage area;

wherein after the storage area is re-locked, the processor is programmed to read all medical articles in the storage area to determine if any have been taken, if an article has been identified as taken, the processor is programmed to compare the taken article to the patient data base and if the taken article is not found in the patient data base, to provide an alarm;

wherein the memory includes a data base in which data pertaining to recalled articles are stored; and

the processor further being programmed to compare the identification data of the medical articles in the storage container to the recalled article data base in the memory, and if the comparison shows that a medical article is recalled, to provide a notice of such recall status.

3. A method of managing inventory in a medical cart, the inventory comprising medical articles for dispensing to a particular patient, each of the medical articles being identified by a wireless data carrier which is responsive to electromagnetic energy (EM) of a frequency f1 in response to which the wireless data carrier provides identification data, the management method comprising:

preparing a patient data base of medical devices located in a storage area of the cart that are for the particular patient;

injecting electromagnetic energy of a frequency f1 into a metallic enclosure located within the cart with a probe, the metallic enclosure having electrically conductive walls, wherein the position of the probe in relation to the electrically conductive walls is selected so that reflected EM of frequency f1 within the metallic enclosure is in phase at the probe position to thereby optimize power transfer at frequency f1 into the enclosure, the electrically conductive walls completely surrounding an internal reading area of the enclosure, the enclosure having a natural frequency of resonance f2 which is different from the frequency f1 and to which a data carrier that is responsive to frequency f1 is not operationally responsive to frequency f2, wherein the storage area is located within the metallic enclosure;

actively matching the impedance of a probe that is used to inject EM energy into the metallic enclosure more closely to impedance of the enclosure at frequency f1;

controlling access to the storage area within the enclosure with a locking device, the storage area being inaccessible when the locking device is locked and accessible when the locking device is unlocked;

receiving a request from a health care provider to have access to the storage area for dispensing an article to the particular patient;

unlocking the locking device of the storage area if the health care provider requesting access matches as being assigned to the patient;

reading all medical articles in the storage area after the storage area has been re-locked to identify any medical article that has been taken; and

if a medical article has been identified as taken, comparing the taken medical article to the patient data base and if the taken medical article does not match the patient data base, providing an alarm; and

determining if a medical article in the storage area is expired through locating an article expiration date from a medical article data base, comparing that expiration date to a selected expiration date, and providing a notice of expiration if the two dates match or if the expiration date of the medical article preceded the selected date.

4. A method of managing inventory in a medical cart, the inventory comprising medical articles for dispensing to a particular patient, each of the medical articles being identified by a wireless data carrier which is responsive to electromagnetic energy (EM) of a frequency f1 in response to which the wireless data carrier provides identification data, the management method comprising:

preparing a patient data base of medical devices located in a storage area of the cart that are for the particular patient;

injecting electromagnetic energy of a frequency f1 into a metallic enclosure located within the cart with a probe, the metallic enclosure having electrically conductive walls, wherein the position of the probe in relation to the electrically conductive walls is selected so that reflected EM of frequency f1 within the metallic enclosure is in phase at the probe position to thereby optimize power transfer at frequency f1 into the enclosure, the electrically conductive walls completely surrounding an internal reading area of the enclosure, the enclosure having a natural frequency of resonance f2 which is different from the frequency f1 and to which a data carrier that is responsive to frequency f1 is not operationally responsive to frequency f2, wherein the storage area is located within the metallic enclosure;

actively matching the impedance of a probe that is used to inject EM energy into the metallic enclosure more closely to impedance of the enclosure at frequency f1;

controlling access to the storage area within the enclosure with a locking device, the storage area being inaccessible when the locking device is locked and accessible when the locking device is unlocked;

receiving a request from a health care provider to have access to the storage area for dispensing an article to the particular patient;

unlocking the locking device of the storage area if the health care provider requesting access matches as being assigned to the patient;

reading all medical articles in the storage area after the storage area has been re-locked to identify any medical article that has been taken; and

if a medical article has been identified as taken, comparing the taken medical article to the patient data base and if the taken medical article does not match the patient data base, providing an alarm; and

determining if a medical article in the storage area is recalled through locating identification of the medical article in a data base, comparing the identification of the medical article to a recalled article data base, and if the comparison shows that the medical article is recalled, providing an indication of such recall status about the medical article.