Method and apparatus for labeling a medicinal substance
AssigneeCodonics, Inc.
InventorsGary Keefe, Lawrence Srnka, Michael Kolberg, Timothy Jablonski
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Provided is a method for reading a code from a container of a medicinal substance and printing a label for the container. The method includes reading a machine readable code associated with a container for storing a medicinal drug. The machine readable code includes an identification information of the medicinal drug. The method also for determining a useful life of the medicinal drug based on a time at which the container for storing the medicinal drug was initially accessed and encoding a label content including the useful life of the medicinal drug. The method also includes printing a label including the label content including the useful life of the medicinal drug.
Claims21
An apparatus for labeling a medicinal substance comprising:
- a scanner that scans a first machine-readable code associated with a source container storing the medicinal substance to be delivered to a patient;
- a processor component comprising:
- a substance identification component that determines, based at least in part on said scanning of the first machine-readable code, an identity of the medicinal substance stored in the source container,
- a usage component that establishes a time at which the medicinal substance stored in the source container was initially accessed, and
- a labeler component that generates label content comprising information indicating a useful life of the medicinal substance stored in the source container in a machine readable format, based at least in part on the time established by the usage component;
- and
- a printer for printing a label comprising the label content to indicate the useful life of the medicinal substance in response to subsequent scanning of the label content.
A method of labeling a medicinal drug, comprising:
- reading a machine readable code associated with a primary package or a secondary package,
- wherein the primary package is associated with a container for storing the medicinal drug,
- wherein the secondary package comprises a plurality of primary packages, and
- wherein the machine readable code comprises, at least, an identification information of the medicinal drug;
- determining a useful life of the medicinal drug based on a time at which the container for storing the medicinal drug was initially accessed;
- encoding a label content comprising:
- the useful life of the medicinal drug;
- printing a label comprising:
- the label content comprising:
- the useful life of the medicinal drug.
A method of labeling a medication in a hospital, comprising:
- reading a machine readable code from a first label associated with a secondary package or at least one of a plurality of primary packages containing the medication;
- determining, based at least in part on the machine readable code, an identity of the medication;
- determining a useful life of the medication based on a time at which the container for storing the medication was initially accessed;
- encoding the identity of the medication and the useful life in a machine-readable form to be included in label content;
- and
- printing a label comprising the label content to indicate the identity and the useful life of the medication.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.