Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Processes – Battery grid pasting
Patent
1991-10-16
1994-08-30
Jacyna, J. Casimer
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Processes
Battery grid pasting
141 2, 141 9, 141 10, 141 18, 141 67, 141 98, 141100, 141114, 141329, 141129, 141 89, 221 79, 221225, 414225, 901 6, 901 7, 156DIG18, 156DIG37, 604408, 604414, 604416, A61J 100, B01F 1300
Patent
active
053418549
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to an automated robotic dispensing system for combining a unit drug dose from a vial with a solute for the drug in an IV bag or syringe.
BACKGROUND ART
Generally the task of reconstituting antibiotic or other pharmaceuticals as well as performing fluid transfers from unit drug dose vials is carried out manually. Such work may be performed in a variety of environments such as in a pharmacy or by nursing staff in hospital. Whatever the environment the manual work results in a large amount of technician work load. The resulting labour cost has contributed to the expense of health care.
Typically, in the current procedure, a prescription is received by the pharmacy admixture area. While practice may vary, a pharmacist or other technician may gather all required components, verifying they have not exceeded their shelf life and are the correct constituents, and places them in any tray or container along with the original prescription, in a container which may be a tray made of for example stainless steel or plastic. This tray is placed within a laminar filtered air flow hood. A technician then performs the reconstitution procedure and places the IV bag, the empty drug vial and the original prescription back into the tray. The tray is then checked by another technician where the prescription is again verified against the solute and the empty drug vial and inventory records are updated.
Moreover, the use of sterile conditions when mixing drug doses into solution in IV bags is of prime importance. The fact that the prescription will enter a patient's circulatory system means that any risk of contamination must be eliminated. Such conditions are difficult to achieve and dictate procedures which lengthen the preparation time, increasing unit production cost.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
The invention aims to provide an automated robotic system whereby technician time may be reduced thereby increasing productivity, and in which sterile conditions may be maintained. Moreover, it is also an aim to provide a system in which errors or inconsistencies of technique may be reduced or eliminated.
Accordingly the invention provides an automated robotic dispensing system for introducing a unit drug dose from a vial having a top diaphragm pierceable by a needle into a container of solute therefor, comprising a filling station including a manipulating robot, a vial dispenser, a container dispenser for said containers, a needle dispenser, a processing unit and a loading location of an output means for processed containers; the robot being programmed to receive a said vial containing a said unit drug dose from a vial pick-up location of the vial dispenser and deliver it to a vial reception location of the processing unit; receive a said container from the container dispenser at a container pick-up location and deliver the container to a container reception location of the processing unit; receive a said needle from the needle dispenser at a needle pick-up location and deliver the needle to a needle holder of the processing unit; receive the processed container from the processing unit and deliver it to the output; and receive the empty vial from the processing unit and deliver it to the output; receive the used needle from the processing unit and discard it to a discard location; the vial dispenser being adapted to hold a plurality of vials each containing a said unit drug dose and to deliver them sequentially to the vial pick-up location; the container dispenser being adapted to hold a plurality of containers containing solute for the drug dose and to deliver them sequentially to the pick-up location; the needle dispenser being adapted to hold a plurality of double ended needles and to deliver them sequentially to the pick-up location; the processing unit including means for moving the vial, the needle and the corresponding container into fluid communication through the needle, and means for flowing fluid from the container to the vial and vice-versa to dissolve the drug dose and transfe
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Zymate Laboratory Automation System, Zymark Corporation, Sep. 1986, entire document.
Fincati Anne M.
Voss Henry H.
Zezulka Bohuslav J.
Alberta Research Council
Jacyna J. Casimer
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