Box-card system

Abstract

The present invention provides a box-card system for use with the distribution of medication, specifically orally disintegrating tablets (ODT's), to residents/patients of long term care facilities. A box-card allows ODT's to be stored and distributed from their original manufacturer packaging. The box-card is dimensioned to be coextensive in height and width to a standard medication punch card, commonly used to store and dispense traditional medication forms to residents/patients of long term care facilities. The box-card allows ODT's and other medications to be stored and dispensed from a medication drawer of a medication cart with standard punch cards, allowing the stored medications to be easily accessed and dispensed therefrom.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is entitled to the benefit of Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 574,259 filed 2004 May 25.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates generally to the field of pharmaceutical dispensing systems for long term care facilities. More specifically, the present invention relates to a box-card system for dispensing pharmaceuticals from a medication cart. [0004] 2. Background of the Prior Art [0005] Most long term care facilities have a system of exchange with a pharmacy to provide medications to residents / patients of the facility. On a periodic basis, the pharmacy fills each prescription for each resident / patient in a process called a cycle exchange. In a cycle exchange, each individual prescription for a resident / patient is put in a separate punch card and placed in a medication cart drawer. The punch cards are uniform in shape and size, and configured for easy fit...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016] The front and back sides of the box-card are dimensionally coextensive to the length and height of a punch card. This allows the box-card to be easily stored and accessed by a nursing staff in charge of administering medications to residents / patients. This also prevents the many problems associated with the prior art, such as storing ODT's in a separate drawer of the medication cart, causing medication dosages to be missed. The present invention allows residents / patients, long term care facilities and pharmacies to take advantage of the many benefits provided by using ODT's.

Problems solved by technology

The medication drawers are fixed in dimension, designed to hold the standard punch card format, and limited in capacity.

However, if the ODT cannot be dispensed by the pharmacy to the facility in a cost effective manner, the resident / patient and pharmacy cannot take advantage of the price savings.

A problem with ODT's is that they must stay in their original manufacturer's unit dose packaging, an ODT blister pack, and are unable to be repackaged in the punch card format used in most long term care facilities.

ODT's are fragile and will crumble in the repackaging process.

In the heat seal process used to seal the punch cards, the ODT will melt and become unusable.

They also may begin to dissolve or disintegrate when exposed to air.

Even if ODT's were able to be packaged within a traditional punch card format, the ODT's could not be safely removed from the punch card.

ODT's lack the strength of traditional medications, and would crumble when forced against the punch card backing, therefore making it impractical to use ODT's with traditional punch cards.

Because ODT blister packs are not dimensioned in accordance with the traditional punch card, they cannot be placed in the medication drawer with the punch cards.

The manufacturers boxes and ODT blister packs take up too much space in the medication drawer of the medication cart.

This makes for inefficient use of the medication drawer space.

Another problem is that, due to the nonuniform size, ODT's may be missed during a resident / patient pass, or will cause problems to a nursing staff in accessing and dispensing medications from the medication drawer.

A problem with this approach is that the ODT's may be missed by a nursing staff that is used to dispensing medications from the medication cart drawer, and fails to access the ODT's in the ancillary drawer.

Also, because the ODT is not located in the medication cart drawer, it may be missed for reorder with the providing pharmacy.

This places a burden of time and efficiency on the nursing staff to make sure that the ODT is reordered.

If the medication is missed or not ordered, the cost of special delivery or filling the order by a nearby pharmacy is a substantial yet avoidable expense.

As more and more manufacturers switch to the ODT form of medication these problems will increasingly affect the costs and efficiencies of the operation of long term care facilities.

A resident / patient that does not complete a repackaged prescription cycle cannot be reimbursed by a pharmacy due to the repackaging of the medication.

The pharmacy, however, may only be reimbursed by the manufacturer for unused medications that remain in the original package of the manufacturer.

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