Pharmaceutical administrative system for ordering and receiving prescribed medication

• US 7,636,718 B1
• Filed: 08/29/2000
• Issued: 12/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: B Braun Medical Incorporated (B. Braun Holding GmbH & Co. KG)
• Original Assignee: B Braun Medical Incorporated (B. Braun Holding GmbH & Co. KG)
• Inventors: Koch, Michael A., Steen, Eric K., Wilverding, Thomas J., Pfeiffer, Jean, Brandon, William John
• Primary Examiner(s): Colbert; Ella
• Application Number:
  US09/650,482
• Time in Patent Office: 3,402 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1- 4, 705/9, 705/10, 705/26, 707/100, 707/104.1, 700/90, 700231-236, 700/110, 700/239, 700/244, 709/213, 709/223, 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/10 relating to drugs or medications, e.g. for ensuring correct administration to patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/60 relating to nutrition control, e.g. diets
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A pharmaceutical administrative system with a pharmacy and a service center network for preparing and dispensing medication. The pharmacy network prepares orders for medication from various customers for various patients. By retrieving information from a global database in the service center network, the pharmacy network conveys patient, customer and formulary information to users of the pharmacy network. Also, the pharmacy network prepares medication specific labels to identify and verify the contents of the medication. Furthermore, the pharmacy network provides additional safeguards and information, including balancing orders and displaying and/or generating hardcopies of solubility curves, to a health care provider using the pharmacy network with the additional ability to customize the medication.

Claims

1. A pharmaceutical administrative system comprising:

a pharmacy network including a pharmacy server and at least one pharmacy client system, the at least one pharmacy client system configured to accept and process orders for medications; and

a service center network including a service center server the service center network coupled to the pharmacy network and configured with a global database including a plurality of formulary records;

wherein the service center server is configured to supply the pharmacy server at least one of the plurality of formulary records for at least one of the orders for medication upon request by the at least one pharmacy client system when the at least one of the orders for medication is processed, and wherein the pharmacy client system is further configured to generate a medication specific label containing medication composition information.

2. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 1 wherein the global database further includes a plurality of order records, each order record including order information for an order accepted and processed by the at least one pharmacy client system.

3. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 1 wherein the global database further includes a plurality of customer records, each customer record including contact and formulary information for at least one customer.

4. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 2 wherein the global database further includes a plurality of patient records, each patient record including contact information and medication history for at least one patient.

5. Tile pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 3 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to provide updates to the patient, customer, and formulary records in the global database.

6. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 5 wherein updates to the formulary records include modification to the ingredients of the medication.

7. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein updates to the modification to the ingredients of the medication include changes to amounts of caloric content in the medication.

8. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein updates to the modification to the ingredients of the medication include changes to amounts and preferences of electrolytes in the medication.

9. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to verify the updates to the formulary records in the global database.

10. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein the medication specific label is for an intravenous solution and the medication identification information includes a refractive index associated with the intravenous solution.

11. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein the medication specific label is for an intravenous solution and the medication identification information includes a level of potassium associated with the intravenous solution.

12. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 6 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to generate a calcium phosphate solubility curve for an order accepted and processed by the at least one pharmacy client.

13. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 5 further comprising:

a backup network configured to provide access to a backup database by the pharmacy network when the service center network is not available for a predetermined amount of time, the backup network comprising;

a backup server configured to;

receive replicated records of orders for medications, the replicated records of orders for medications being replicated by the service center server; and

store in the backup database the replicated records of orders for medications.

14. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 5 wherein the pharmacy server is configured with a local database containing a subset of formulary records of the plurality of formulary records in the global database that specifically pertains to the pharmacy network.

15. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 1 wherein the medication is an intravenous solution.

16. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 15 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to validate the modifications to the ingredients by generating a calcium phosphate solubility curve for the medication.

17. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 16 wherein the pharmacy client system is further configured to determine calcium and phosphate content in the medication and to compare the calcium and phosphate

content to the calcium phosphate solubility curve for the medication.

18. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 17 wherein the pharmacy client system is further configured to provide a warning when the calcium and phosphate content does not match the calcium phosphate solubility curve for the medication.

19. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 18 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to generate medication specific labels for the medication.

20. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 19 wherein the medication specific labels for the medication includes information about a refractive index of the intravenous solution.

21. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 20 wherein the medication specific labels for the medication includes information about a level of potassium in the intravenous solution calculated using flame photometry.

22. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 21 wherein the modifications to the ingredients of the medication includes modifications to caloric content of the medication.

23. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 22 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to validate the modifications to the caloric content in the medication by comparing the modifications to predetermined amounts of caloric content in predefined medications.

24. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 21 wherein the modifications to the ingredients of the medication includes modifications to electrolytes in the medication.

25. The pharmaceutical administrative system of claim 24 wherein the pharmacy client system is configured to validate the modifications to the electrolytes in the medication by comparing the modifications to predetermined amounts of electrolytes in predefined medications.