Medical Dose Imaging With Auto-Cropping for Remote Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional pharmacy management techniques face inefficiencies and errors in medical dose preparation due to reliance on physical labels, manual record-keeping, and lack of reliable consultation of FDA-approved protocols, leading to unprepared, lost, or duplicate doses, and increased administrative overhead.
Innovation Solution
A medical dose preparation management system that receives and manages dose orders digitally, captures and auto-cropps medical dose preparation images to reduce storage size without reducing resolution, allowing for automated documentation and verification, thereby reducing human intervention and increasing efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If physical labels are used to track medical dose orders, then the pharmacy can maintain a simple tracking system, but labels may be lost or damaged resulting in unprepared or duplicate doses
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces physical labels with digital images captured by an imaging device. These digital images serve as copies of the physical label information and are stored in a database, eliminating the risk of physical label loss or damage while maintaining reliable dose tracking.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent substitutes the mechanical physical label system with an optical imaging system. An imaging device captures images of the preparation area, and a processor automatically analyzes these images to track dose orders, replacing the manual physical label handling process.
2Measurement precision
If pharmacists physically verify prepared doses by entering the clean room, then direct observation is possible, but protective clothing and equipment are required consuming time and resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates digital copies (images) of the preparation area and verifies doses by analyzing these images remotely. The pharmacist or system can review the captured images without physically entering the clean room, eliminating the need for protective clothing and equipment while maintaining verification accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The imaging device and image processing system serve as an intermediary between the pharmacist and the preparation area. Instead of direct physical observation requiring entry into the clean room, the intermediary imaging system transmits visual information for remote verification.
3Ease of manufacture
If manual record-keeping of dose orders is used, then the system is simple to implement, but errors increase and administrative overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs automatic documentation and verification of dose preparation without requiring manual record-keeping by pharmacy staff. The imaging device automatically captures images, and the processor automatically analyzes them to verify doses, making the system self-sufficient and eliminating administrative overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual record-keeping with an automated optical recognition system. The processor uses image analysis to automatically document and track dose orders, eliminating manual data entry and reducing both errors and administrative overhead.
4Measurement precision
If full-resolution medical dose preparation images are stored, then image quality is maintained for verification purposes, but storage space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by identifying and retaining only the region of interest within each captured image. Instead of storing entire high-resolution images, the system extracts and stores only the relevant portion containing the medical dose preparation area, maintaining necessary image quality while reducing storage requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts the region of interest from the full captured image and stores only that extracted portion. This separation of relevant from irrelevant image data reduces storage space requirements while preserving the essential verification information.
Data Source
AI summary
Use of improved image acquisition for a medical dose preparation system. The medical dose preparation system may include a work station for capturing medical dose preparation images (e.g., to document preparation of a mediation dose). The medical dose preparation image may be captured by a video data stream processor capable of performing an auto cropping technique on a video data stream received from an image device. Accordingly, memory resources may be more efficiently employed while maintaining high quality medical dose preparation images.