System and software of enhanced pharmaceutical operations in long-term care facilities and related methods

A method of restructuring long-term care facility staff procedures for communication between one or more long-term care facility staff members, each located at a long-term care facility, and a long-term care facility remote pharmacy positioned remote from the long-term care facility, the method comprising the steps of:

• installing one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts at each of the plurality of long-term care facilities operable by the one or more long-term care facility staff members, each of the at least one pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts being positioned remote from, and adapted to be in communication with, a long-term care facility pharmacy management server via a communications network, the long-term care facility pharmacy management server including non-transitory, tangible memory medium to store long-term care facility management computer programs including a patient prescription receiver to receive a digital image of a patient medication prescription order and a medication dispensing apparatus administrator to selectively remote control one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing cart functions, the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts being further adapted to be in communication with one or more video input devices;
• providing remote training to the one or more long-term care facility staff members from the long-term care facility remote pharmacy by selectively remotely controlling one or more functions, available to the one or more long-term care facility staff members from a terminal of one of the at least one pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts, by long-term care facility management computer programs via the communications network responsive to input received from one or more long-term care facility remote pharmacy personnel;
• verifying, at the long-term care facility remote pharmacy, one or more digital images of one or more patient medication prescription orders received from one or more pharmaceutical prescription document processors adapted to be in communication with one of the at least one pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts to thereby enhance reduction of medication order errors and reduce miscommunication between one or more long-term care facility staff members and the long-term care remote pharmacy;
• adding, via the long-term care facility management computer programs, the one or more digital images of one or more patient medication prescription orders received from the one or more pharmaceutical prescription document processors via the communications network to memory of the long-term care facility pharmacy management server for verification by one or more long-term care facility remote pharmacy personnel;
• verifying the one or more patient medication prescription orders in the memory of the long-term care facility pharmacy management server by comparing, via the long-term care facility management computer programs, the one or more digital images of the one or more patient medication prescription orders with one or more of a patient medication profile, a patient diagnosis profile, a patient insurance profile, and a drug interaction profile, to thereby enhance reduction of drug conflicts;
• analyzing, via the long-term care facility management computer programs, the one or more patient medication prescription orders in the memory of the long-term care facility server to determine whether drug conflicts exist;
• and
• transmitting dispensing instructions to the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts by the long-term care facility management computer programs via the communications network when no drug conflicts exist to thereby initiate dispensing of the one or more disposable individual patient dosing package at the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts;
• packaging, by the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts, one or more medications into one or more disposable individual patient dosing packages;
• and
• displaying, at the long-term care facility remote pharmacy, one or more video images of at least one visually accessible functional component of one of the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts via the long-term care facility management computer programs over the communications network responsive to video signals received from the one or more video input devices and providing remote troubleshooting of the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing carts by the one or more long-term care facility remote pharmacy personnel responsive to the video image of the at least one visually accessible functional component of the one or more pharmaceutical storage and electronic dispensing cart.