Patent Application
20060161296
This invention relates to devices and techniques for dispensing prescription medications or other items that are prepared to a customer order and later to be dispensed to the customer, i.e., stored for later customer pickup. The invention is more especially directed to a medication dispensing unit which allows a pharmacist to fill prescriptions and load the filled prescriptions into the unit, and which keeps track of each of the prescription orders in the unit so each prescription can be easily retrieved when the customer arrives to pick up the filled prescription.
When a pharmacy customer, e.g., a medical or dental patient, is issued a prescription by a medical practitioner, the customer can drop the prescription off at the pharmacy or can phone the pharmacy to ask the pharmacist to fill the prescription. In some cases, the physician or other practitioner calls in the prescription to the pharmacy. The pharmacist then prepares the prescription order, i.e., places the medication(s) into appropriate containers, with labels and directions for use, and then places the filled order into a pharmacy bag or other container, which is then placed into a bin to await the customer. Typically, there are twenty-six such bins, one for each letter of the alphabet, and the orders are placed into the bin that corresponds to the customer's last name. When the customer arrives at the pharmacy counter, an employee retrieves the prescription medication from the bin and delivers it to the customer. Unfortunately, this has not been a particularly efficient means of delivery, as the medications can be mis-filed, i.e., placed into a wrong bin, and sometimes the customer's last name is misspelled, also resulting in the medication not being in the expected bin.
It would be desirable to employ a pharmacy cabinet in which the filled prescription orders can be stored securely until customer pickup, which will automatically keep track of the location of each filled order, and which will automatically find the customer's filled order for delivery. However, no such apparatus exists at present.
A similar problem exists for the film processing counter, which can be at the same drug store or the pharmacy, where exposed film is dropped and the processed film and prints are placed into alphabetic drawers or bins to await customer pickup.
Automated merchandise and order storage and tracking systems are sometimes used in some retail operations, for example, in the dry cleaning trade, where garments of numerous customers are stored on a rack, and a computer device keeps track of the locations of the garments so they can be retrieved for the customers. However, these are not readily adaptable for use in a pharmacy or similar environment.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a prescription dispensing arrangement that avoids the drawbacks of the prior art.
It is another object to provide a pharmacy storage and delivery arrangement that retains filled prescription orders within a cabinet and keeps track of the identity and location of each filled order so that they can be delivered efficiently to the customers.
It is still another object to provide, for use at a pharmacy, a system that automatically tracks the locations of filled prescription orders and safeguards them until delivery to the patient or other customer.
Other objects include secure storage of multiple prescription medications in a small footprint or minimal floor space; database control over the locations of these medications; fast retrieval of prescriptions; quick storage of filled prescriptions; and database providing for restocking of medications not picked up by the patient within a specified period of time.
The system can allow for bar coding to allow double-checking of prescriptions before dispensing to the customer.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, an automated medication dispensing system allows for customer orders, such as prescribed medication, to be stored for customer pickup, and automatically dispenses the filled customer orders when the customer later arrives to pick the order up. In this system there are pharmacy bags, e.g., polyethylene bags or envelopes with hanger handles, into which the filled customer orders are placed for storage. Other storage receptacle could be employed instead of the bags or envelopes. The automated storage and dispensing apparatus then stores, tracks, and dispenses these said pharmacy bags. This automated storage dispensing apparatus employs a cabinet or enclosure in which an access opening extends laterally across one wall. A conveyor arrangement within the cabinet defines a continuous closed loop, and carries a number of transverse horizontal hanger bars or rods. A portion of the conveyor loop extends vertically past the access opening. The hanger bars are at spaced positions on the conveyor and the conveyor controllably moves these bars in sequence to a position at the access opening. Each hanger bar has a series of spaced notches or annular recesses that define respective bag positions along the hanger bar. An automated control arrangement allows for entering the customer and prescription data, so that the identity of each pharmacy bag is stored in memory, as is the location of the respective hanger bar and bag position along the bar at which each pharmacy bag has been placed. This control arrangement also identifies open hanger positions to allow the pharmacist to insert filled pharmacy bags as the orders are filled. When the customer arrives to pick up the prescribed medication, the customer data can be entered, e.g., by swiping a customer card through a reader. The location of the corresponding pharmacy bag is found in which the filled customer order has been stored. The conveyor automatically operates to position the respective bar at the access opening for dispensing. The arrangement of the invention also employs means for identifying the associated bag position along that hanger bar to locate the pharmacy bag so that the customer order can be dispensed to the customer.
The conveyor pathway is preferably a continuous closed loop. The conveyor preferably includes a pair of drive webs, e.g., chain or belt arrangements that travel over wheels or pulleys that define the closed loop with the transverse hanger bars or rods, or other carrier means, being supported on their ends upon the drive webs. A gear drive motor drive propels the drive webs, with the gear motor drive preferably being a 90-degree gear motor disposed at a back wall or side wall of the enclosure. This arrangement is remarkably compact. The gear motor drive includes a worm gear that prevents the conveyor from being advanced by hand, so only the pharmacy bags on the one hanger bar can be accessed at a time. The drive webs may be continuous chains or may be continuous belts of a durable synthetic material, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl, reinforced vinyl, Tyvek, or another suitable material.
Preferably the hanger bars are formed as a round rods of a given diameter and each of the annular recesses is a round region of a diameter smaller than said given diameter. In a preferred mode, there may be thirty recesses, i.e., thirty bag positions, on each hanger bar.
The dispensing arrangement is favorably constructed so that the filled prescription orders are loaded into the cabinet via a load access opening on one side of the cabinet, and then are dispensed to the customers through a second, i.e., dispense access opening at the other side of the cabinet. The conveyor system moves vertically past each of the two access openings and moves the hanger bars controllably into position at the access openings for loading and dispensing.
At each of these access openings, means are provided for identifying the desired bag position on the hanger bar, i.e., for inserting the pharmacy bag upon loading, or upon dispensing for finding the pharmacy bag holding the customer's filled prescription. This arrangement can favorably feature a movable mirror that is located at the respective access opening, and which can be moved controllably in a horizontal direction across the access opening. A laser has its beam directed at the mirror, and the mirror is angled to deflect the beam towards the hanger bar. The control arrangement for the system identifies the respective bag location for loading or dispensing, and automatically moves the mirror laterally so that the beam reflected by the mirror illuminates the specific bag location associated with the given customer order. Alternatively, a fixed array of lasers or LEDs may be used for identification of the proper loading or unloading location.
An on-board processor or an associated PC or laptop can store the patient and medication information for each pharmacy bag. This provides a positive means of accounting. If a given bag is not dispensed to the customer within some pre-set time period, e.g., within 48 hours, then the processor can notify the pharmacist so that the contents can be restocked or reshelved.
The processor determines the shortest path to the hanger bar for a given pharmacy order, and moves the conveyor in one direction or the other (forward or reverse) to bring up the pharmacy bag in the shortest time. An audit trail may be kept in the processor memory to identify who has accessed any given pharmacy bag, and at what time. This can be displayed or downloaded.
The conveyor path may be designed to maximize the number of pharmacy bags for the available volume inside the cabinet or enclosure.
Upon loading or dispensing the pharmacy bags, the bar coded symbols or other readable indicia may be automatically read to ensure that the proper prescription order is at the correct location or position.
The pharmacy staff has access to any of the prescription orders, both at loading and at dispensing, without needing to stoop or bend. There may be regulated access to one hanger bar or rod at a time. A movable slot or multiple door feature can be employed to limit access to only a single pharmacy bag position at the access opening at a given time.
As one example of many possible alternative carriers or receptacles to the aforementioned pharmacy bags, trays can be employed for carrying stacks of so-called punch cards that carry a number of individual doses of a medication. The trays can be adapted to hold a number of stacks of these cards in each tray.
In another favorable embodiment, scissors action linkage arms are attached at one end to the conveyors and at the other to the hanger bars. This helps reduce spacing between the hanger bars, so that more pharmaceutical envelopes can be carried in the same dimension cabinet.
Similar apparatus may be employed for customer ordered items other than pharmaceuticals, for example, photographic film processing, as discussed before.
The above and many other objects, features, and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the ensuing description of a selected preferred embodiment, which is to be considered in connection with the accompanying Drawing.
With reference to the Drawing, and initially to FIGS. 1 to 4, a medication dispensing arrangement 10 is configured to hold prescription drug orders as they are filled by a pharmacist and then to dispense the prescription drug orders to the customers. The dispensing arrangement of this embodiment may be employed at the pharmacy counter of a drug store, or may be used in the pharmacy department of a hospital or health center. Other embodiments employing the same general principles can be used in other commercial or service environments where there is a need to hold onto an item prepared for the customer, patient, or other recipient until it can be dispensed to the recipient. In this embodiment, the dispensing arrangement 10 has a cabinet or enclosure 12 here shown with a front wall or front panel 14, with an transverse access opening or window 16 across the front wall 14. A similar access window 116 is formed on another wall 114 at the opposite, i.e., back, side of the enclosure. On the inside of the enclosure 12 are a number of horizontal carriers, in this case transverse hanger bars or rods 18 (discussed later in reference to
A work shelf 22 is situated just below the transverse access opening 16. Also there is a light curtain provided for safety purposes, formed of a light transmitter 24 situated at the left side of the access opening 16 and a detector 26 at the right side. The transmitter emits a sheet of light across the opening 16, and the detector picks this up. Any time that a break is detected in the sheet of light, e.g., whenever a person's hand penetrates into the opening, this penetration is detected. The light curtain can be used to disable the action of the conveyor within the cabinet so that the hanger bars 18 can only move if the light screen is clear.
Here, a computer controller, e.g., a standard lap top unit 28, is supported on a shelf at one side wall of the cabinet 12, and is used for entering prescription data and customer or patient information. This computer unit 28 is connected with industry standard cabling and connections to a controller board inside the cabinet and controls the action of the conveyor on which the hanger rods or bars are supported.
Also shown here, through a cut-away portion of the front panel or wall 14 above the access opening 16, is a laser locator arrangement 100, which identifies the bag or envelope position along the hanger bar 18 where a given envelope 20 is to be placed during loading, or during dispensing where a particular pharmacy envelope 20 is hanging so that it can be identified and retrieved. This laser locator arrangement has a laser 102 emitting a laser beam horizontally, and a movable mirror 104 positioned in the laser beam and angled so as to deflect the laser beam downward and onto the hanger bar 18 that is positioned at the access opening 16. The mirror 104 is carried on a transverse track 106 and is controllably movable along the track, indexed to positions that correspond to the bag or envelope positions for the envelopes 20 along the hanger bar 18. Movement of the mirror can be carried out with a stepper motor, timing belt, and linear rail configuration. The absolute position of he movable mirror may be monitored through the use of a radial potentiometer interfaced with the timing belt. An alternative arrangement could employ a series of LEDs or laser diodes, which are generally equivalent for this purpose, each positioned above the bar 18 and directing its beam downward to a respective corresponding position along the hanger bar. A suitable control circuit would power the LEDs or laser diodes one at a time so that a corresponding one of these devices lights to point to the particular bag location. In either case, the locator arrangement produces a visible spot to identify the pharmacy bag (for dispensing to the customer) or an empty space for the pharmacy bag (for loading as the prescription orders are filled). Alternatively, LEDs can be arranged in a longitudinal array facing toward the front of the machine, i.e. towards the operator, to identify bag locations. There may be just above or just below the opening 16.
In this embodiment, there are a pair of endless web conveyors, namely, chain drives 30 and 32 disposed at the right and left of the enclosure or cabinet. As show in
Also shown in
The hanger bar 18 of this embodiment may be a generally cylindrical rod 40 as shown in
An example of the pharmacy envelope or bag 20 is shown in
A portion of the cabinet 12 of an embodiment is shown in
In this embodiment, there may be ten hanger bars or rods 18 carried by the two conveyor drive webs, with each bar or rod having thirty bag positions. This creates a capacity of three hundred pharmacy envelopes. A practical arrangement of any number of pharmacy envelopes can be achieved by selecting the number or hanger bars and length of each, with the cabinet of adequate height and width.
For a photo-processing environment, the envelopes containing processed film and prints can be attached to the hanger bar by using a hook or handle that clamps onto the film processing envelope, and can be removed from the envelope when the customer picks up his or her prints and processed film.
The prescription medication dispensing arrangement 10 can be favorably employed in the pharmacy of a drug store or of a clinic. As the prescription for a given patient is filled by the pharmacist, the medications constituting that prescription are placed within a bag, box, or container, and are labeled. A bar code is included. Then, this package is placed within one of the re-usable plastic pharmacy envelopes 20, and the extruded plastic handle portion, i.e., hanger handle 52, is pushed together to close the envelope. Then the filled prescription order is ready to be placed into the cabinet. The pharmacist makes an entry into the computer 28 and this creates a signal to the controller board within the cabinet to move the conveyor along the chain path to the nearest available location for loading. This brings up one of the hanger bars 18 to the load-side opening 16, and the laser locator arrangement 100 points a spot at an open or unoccupied recess 48 along the bar. Then the pharmacist places the pharmacy envelope at this location. The computer 28 stores the customer and prescription data as well as the identity of the bar and bag location where the pharmacy envelope is stored. In some embodiments, a scanner can read the bar coded symbol off the filled prescription order, and the arrangement 10 then automatically moves the conveyor to bring up the nearest available empty location. Subsequent pharmacy envelopes are filled and loaded into the cabinet in a similar fashion.
The computer keeps track of the physical location of each filled prescription, i.e., each medication, within the cabinet. This can also be carried out, as an option, in an on-board processor on the controller board 36.
The dispensing operation is carried out when the patient or customer arrives at the pharmacy to pick up the medication. When the patient or customer arrives, his or her information is fed into the pharmacy computer. The customer may use a machine-readable card. Then the computer checks its database to find the location of the customer's prescription medications within the storage arrangement cabinet, and using this data signals to the controller board within the cabinet. This causes the conveyor mechanism to bring the appropriate hanger bar into alignment with the dispensing access opening or window 116. The laser mirror moves along above the access opening to shine a spot of light onto the pharmacy bag or envelope 20 that is carrying the customer's pharmacy order, and the pharmacy bag is removed from the cabinet. Then using the bar code, the pharmacy bag is checked against the patient's information in the computer database to ensure that the correct pharmacy order has been selected and removed (This can be done automatically within the cabinet before removing the pharmacy bag). Finally, the prescription medications are delivered to the customer.
The now-empty bag location is identified in the computer database as being available for storage of further medications.
In an alternative embodiment as shown in
In another possible modification, as shown in
In a further embodiment, the storage and dispensing mechanism may employ a number of transport trays suspended between the two chain drives or webs 30, 32, rather than hanger bars and envelopes. These trays may be used for holding stacks of so-called punch cards 80, as shown in
An example of a multiple-compartment transport tray 86 is shown in
Contact lens packages with lenses of various prescription strengths can also be stored and dispensed from an arrangement of this type.
Other possible configurations are also possible, i.e., higher or wider than the embodiments described here. Also, other carriers can be employed instead of the pharmacy envelopes 20 or the trays 86, which here serve as illustrative examples. A cabinet or similar unit incorporating the principles of this invention could be used for other dispensed items in which the access and administration should be closely controlled or to permit accountability of access. A cabinet incorporating the principles of this invention may be used for disposing CDS, DVDs, or video tapes.
Another embodiment of this invention is illustrated in
In place of the light curtains, a different type of safety interlock could be employed, e.g., a treadle based system or an ultrasonic detector system.
The cabinet can be constructed for loading and unloading or dispensing on two different levels, e.g., loaded upstairs and dispensed from downstairs, if such is desired.
The arrangement of this invention as described hereinabove has the attribute of secure storage of multiple prescription medications, and achieves this in a small footprint, requiring little additional floor space. This arrangement has database control over the exact locations of the prescription medications, and achieves both quick storage and fast retrieval of the prescriptions. Bar coding for double-checking the prescriptions before dispensing can be carried out automatically or semi-automatically. The database that identifies the stored prescriptions can also be used to identify the prescriptions not picked up by the customer within a specified time, so that the medications can be returned to inventory, i.e., restocked and reshelved.
While the invention has been described hereinabove with reference to selected preferred embodiments, it should be recognized that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments. Rather, many modification and variations would present themselves to persons skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention, as defined in the appended claims.
