Patent ID: 8219413

Claim:
An identification system for medication management, the system comprising: a drug library comprising a plurality of drug library profiles, each one of the drug library profiles defining a list of drug identifiers associated with drugs allowed for use according to a patient care area of a hospital, and at least one of permitted concentrations and doses associated with each allowed drug; an identification module configured to scan drug information from machine-readable information devices affixed to drugs or containers of drugs and to scan patient information from machine-readable information devices worn by patients, and configured to communicate the drug information and patient information; and a controller in communication with the identification module, the controller configured to: receive information for a selected patient care area of the hospital; access the drug library associated with the selected patient care area of the hospital to associate a drug library profile with the controller; receive the patient information from the identification module; receive the drug information from the identification module, the drug information including a patient identification (ID) that indicates the patient for whom the drug is to be administered, a drug identifier and at least one of drug concentration and dose; determine whether the patient information received from the identification module from the machine-readable information device worn by a patient matches the patient ID contained in the drug information received from the identification module; determine whether the drug identifier and drug concentration or dose contained in the drug information received from the identification module match any entries in the list of drug identifiers, permitted concentrations, and permitted doses of the drug library profile for the selected patient care area that has been associated with the controller; and display an alert message if the scanned drug identifier and/or concentration does not match any entries in the drug library profile for the selected patient care area.