System and apparatus for item management

A medicament-management system which enables a pharmacy user to rapidly and accurately hand-load medicament holder cells with medicaments, the system comprising:

• a portable medicament holder for transferring medicaments to an automatic dispensing machine, the holder having plural cells arranged in a pattern corresponding to a pattern of cells of the automatic dispensing machine, each holder cell defining a cell upper opening through which medicament is hand-loaded and an openable lower opening through which medicament is transferred from the holder cell to a corresponding adjacent cell of the pattern of automatic dispensing machine cells;
• a docking station to which the holder is temporarily docked during the hand-loading, the docking station enabling control of visible information viewable proximate the holder cells indicating yes and no states of the holder cells;
• indicators which communicate the visible information to the user;
• at least one controller controlling the visible information such that yes state information is viewable proximate each holder cell into which medicament is to be hand-loaded, thereby assisting the user to rapidly and correctly perform repetitive hand-loading of holder cells with correct medicament, the at least one controller including a computer and being operable to store information indicating holder cells into which medicament is to be hand-loaded and to activate and to deactivate the visible information;
• an input device operative by a user to indicate to the at least one controller that medicament has been loaded in each holder cell indicated by the yes state information;
• and
• a video display operably connected to the at least one controller and the video display is operable to display information indicating each holder cell into which medicament is to be loaded.