Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Article handling
Reexamination Certificate
2003-01-24
2004-08-10
Tran, Khoi H. (Department: 3651)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Article handling
C700S225000, C700S237000, C700S242000, C221S076000, C221S121000, C221S122000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06775591
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to devices and techniques for dispensing medication and/or other treatment materials to hospital patients, and is especially directed to a medication dispensing cart which provides a nurse or other health care practitioner with access to each patient's medication in a bin that has been previously prepared and filled for that purpose in a pharmacy facility.
Medication carts for distributing patient prescription drugs and other medication and treatment materials to hospital patients can be employed in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other health care facilities. In a typical design, the cart has a number of individual drawers, each with the medication for a respective hospital patient at a given hospital ward or floor. These carts are typically filled in the pharmacy department with the patients' medicine, and then wheeled to the floor or ward. The typical medication cart can facilitate distribution of the medicine somewhat, but there remains a need to account for who may have access to a given patient's medication and when such access occurred. This can be important in the case when a medication, e.g., digitalis in the case of heart patients, had to be “borrowed” from one patient's drawer for the emergency use by another patient, thus leaving a deficit of that drug for the first patient. It is also important to ensure that the medication prescribed for a given patient reaches that patient and is not mistakenly administered to the wrong patient.
One proposal for a medicine cart with access limited to one drawer at a time is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,929. In that cart, there are a number of individual trays that are carried on a conveyor inside the housing of the cart, and these can only be accessed, one tray at a time, at one position at the top of the cart, where there are locking access doors. A microprocessor controls the movement of the conveyor in response to a hand-held computer that is carried by the nurse. This particular cart does have significant limitations in that its bins are not removable, so they cannot be removed to take to the patient's room for administration of the medicine, nor can the bins be pre-loaded at pharmacy and simply inserted into the cart. The need to load the cart by hand leaves room for human error in placing the drugs, syringes, bandages or other medication into the individual bins on the cart, as well as in the need for manual entry of patient and medication information into the unit.
It was desired to have a medical cart or similar medical dispensing station that facilitates pre-loading the patient medication bins by the pharmacist, and which minimizes the opportunity for human error when the medications are dispensed.
It is also desired to have the medical cart automatically bring the various bins up to a dispensing location on the cart one at a time, and to have an automatic bin-centering feature so that the bins do not collide with internal hardware inside the cart cabinet when the bins are being transported on the conveyor inside the cart.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a medical dispensing cart or equivalent dispensing station that avoids the drawbacks of the prior art.
It is another object to provide a medical cart that facilitates administration of medication to each of the patients in a given hospital ward or floor, with a minimum of complexity and without opportunity for human error.
It is still another object to provide a medical cart that can be easily loaded using patient medicine bins that have been pre-loaded at a pharmacy for the respective patients, and which can automatically transfer data concerning the contents of the bin and the identity of the patient for that bin to the data processor of the cart.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, an automated medication dispensing cart, has a cabinet or enclosure with a flat top surface work surface. There is at least one drawer opening in the front wall of the cabinet at a drawer position near the top of the cabinet. An on-board processor stores data concerning the contents of the various medicine bins inside the cart and controls operation of the bin conveyor mechanism. The processor includes display means and a keyboard, active screen, or other user access means to permit the user to enter information about the patient so that the user, to wit, a nurse, can access the patient's medication within the dispensing cart. Within the cart there are a plurality of elongated medication bins, e.g., 24 to 35 bins, and internal conveyor means within cart cabinet or enclosure that support the bins and moves them, under control of the processor, along a predetermined pathway inside said cabinet. This can be a serpentine (folded) pathway so as to maximize the number of bins contained in the cart. There is a drawer position on this pathway aligned with drawer opening, and a drawer is located at this drawer position. Here, a slide member engages a respective one of the bins that happens to be located at the drawer position, and permits the user to pull the bin out from said conveyor means and to pushed it back in to return the bin to the conveyor means. The internal conveyor means includes a plurality of bin carriers that are spaced apart at intervals on the conveyor means, and which are transported along the folded pathway. Each of the bin carriers has structure that slidably mates with corresponding structure on the bins, so that the bins are supported on the conveyor means as they travel along the pathway but are permitted to slide out from the respective bin carriers when at the drawer position.
Preferably, each of the bins can be removed from the cabinet when the bin is at the drawer position with the drawer slide pulled out. The bin can be removed and put back into the drawer later or can be replaced with another bin from the pharmacy. In each case a coded device, that is a 2-D bar code symbol or other coded visual, RF, or magnetic symbol (i.e., a machine-readable code) is positioned on the bin, with the coded symbol containing data representing the contents of the bin and associated patient identification information. The cart includes a reader device at the drawer position for reading the coded symbol and for transferring data for each respective bin to the on-board processor, so that the processor can keep track of which bin is which on the conveyor, as well as what the contents arc for the bins. This facilitates accountability for the medications in the cart, and also makes it possible for a patient's medication to be “borrowed” on an emergency basis, while at the same time the processor will note a shortage of the bin from which the medication had been borrowed so it can be replaced. The processor facility that permits borrowing can be enabled, limited, or blocked, at the option of a supervisory authority.
The bins can be loaded in an order that is determined by an algorithm so as to minimize the times for the bins to reach the access drawer position.
Preferably, the bins are configured to be removable from the drawer when in the drawer is opened. This can facilitate taking the bin directly to the patient with the set of medications for that patient. In a preferred embodiment, each the bin carriers has a pair of horizontal flanges facing one another along opposite sides of the carrier, and each said bin has a pair of elongated channels on opposite sides to slide onto the carrier flanges. This allows the bin to be held securely while traveling on the conveyor inside the enclosure, but also allows the bin to slide out for removal and replacement.
The conveyor pathway is preferably a closed, serpentine loop. The conveyor includes a drive web, e.g., a chain or belt traveling over wheels or pulleys that define the closed loop and the bin carriers are affixed onto this drive web. A gear drive motor drive propels the drive web, with the gear motor drive preferably being a 90-degree gear motor disposed at a ba
Molldrem, Jr. Bernhard P.
S&S X-Ray Products, Inc.
Tran Khoi H.
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