Christer O. Andreasson of Escondido, Calif., and Jimmy C. Caputo of Carlsbad, Calif., have developed a medication dispensing unit for tracking medical products that have a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.
The dispensing unit includes compartments for receiving medical products therein, and readers for reading the RFID tags associated with the medical products in the compartments. A processor is coupled to the readers for receiving and processing readings of the RFID tags in the compartment to identify the medical products in the compartments."
An abstract of the invention, released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (Alexandria, Va.), states, "The processor may identify a medical product removed from a compartment by determining a difference between readings of the RFID tags in the compartment taken before and after the medical product is removed from the compartment. The processor may verify that the medical product removed from the compartment is authorized to be removed or confirmed that an identified patient is intended to receive the medical product being removed from the compartment. A system and method for counterfeit prevention is disclose, as is specimen, blood, organ and the like, tracking."
The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,175,081.
The patent has been assigned to MEPS Realtime Inc., Traverse City, Mich.
Source: U.S. Fed News
