US 5,564,803 · Granted 1996-10-15
The Smart Medicine Cabinet That Unlocked Hospital Efficiency in 1996
Imagine a filing cabinet where each drawer holds one patient's medications, and it only opens when a nurse enters the correct code or scans a barcode. The cabinet tracks every time medicine is given out, creating an automatic record that hospitals can access remotely. It's basically a locked, computerized pharmacy on wheels.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a portable storage unit with multiple patient-specific drawers that lock and unlock selectively based on nurse authentication via keyboard or barcode reader. What's protected here is the combination of individual patient drawers, electronic locking mechanism, data entry system, and wireless transmission capability that allows nurses to access prescribed medications while maintaining security and recording treatment information automatically.
Why it matters
Before this patent, hospital medication distribution relied on manual carts and paper records, creating opportunities for medication errors, theft, and incomplete documentation. By automating drawer access control and requiring nurses to log each medication administration, this design reduced errors and created an auditable trail. The wireless capability meant hospitals could monitor medication use in real time across multiple departments, fundamentally changing how large institutions managed drug inventory and patient safety.
Real-world use
When a nurse wheels this cart into a patient's hospital room, she scans the patient's wristband and the correct drawer pops open automatically, revealing only that patient's prescribed medications while all other drawers stay locked.
Original USPTO abstract
A portable nursing center has a plurality of selectively locked patient drawers carried in a housing. Each of said drawers are movable between a given open position and a closed position each drawer sized and configured for holding pharmaceutical items which have been prescribed for a specific patient. A nurse enters a predetermined access data and other data, using a keyboard or bar code reader which may be removable from the nursing center. Entry of correct data causes the unit to selectively unlock the appropriate patient drawer or on demand drawer while maintaining other drawers in a locked condition. Whenever the patient is given medicine or otherwise treated the nurse enters or receives information pertinent to that treatment. The unit has a transmitter/receiver to transmit and receive such patient information.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,564,803
- Filing date
- 1994-03-21
- Grant date
- 1996-10-15
- Assignee
- Automated Healthcare, Inc.
- Inventor(s)
- MCDONALD; SEAN C., MCDONALD; ROBERT H., LUNAK; RICHARD R., ZINI; ALDO
- CPC class
- G07F11/62
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