Patent ID: 11954551
Assignee: MEPS REAL-TIME, INC.
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 10:
11. A method for establishing a radio frequency (RF) field within a container to identify and track an inventory of medical articles located in the container, the container having electrically-conductive walls within which the medical articles are located, at least some of the medical articles each having an attached identification device that is activated by RF energy and which responds to activation by sending an identification signal, the method comprising:
mounting an RF module within the electrically-conductive walls of the container, the RF module comprising:
a base mountable at the container, the base having a size selected to be compatible with the container size so that the base and components thereof may interact with medical articles placed within the container, the base having a data port and a power port;
a probe forming a part of the base and located within the electrically-conductive walls of the container to inject an activating RF field within the container for activating the identification devices of the medical articles located within the container and to receive identification signals from the activated identification devices;
a reader unit forming a part of the base and having a communications unit with which it connects to the data port, the reader unit also having a control unit connected to the power port and the communications unit, the control unit configured to use power received from the power port to control the probe to inject activating energy into the container to establish an activating RF field within the container, the control unit also configured to control the probe to stop injecting energy into the container and to receive the identification signals from the activated identification devices on the medical articles located within the electrically-conductive walls of the container, to process those identification signals, and to deliver identification data representative of the received identification signals to the data port through the communications unit;

controlling the probe to inject the activating RF field into the container to activate the identification devices of the medical articles so that they will transmit identification signals;
controlling the probe to stop injecting the activating RF field; and
receiving by the probe RF identification signals from the activated identification devices located on the medical articles within the container; and
automatically performing a self-inventory of the container by:
automatically injecting RF activating energy into the container with the probe;
automatically receiving identification signals provided by activated identification devices attached to medical articles located in the container and providing identification data based on the identification signals;
automatically comparing identification data of the medical articles in the container to a data base that provides information about the medical articles having the identification data; and
automatically providing an inventory of the container based on the information about the medical articles in the container.