Patent ID: 8090472

Claim:
A medication dispensing apparatus comprising: an enclosure; a plurality of different-sized medication storage bins located at a plurality of storage locations within the enclosure, each medication storage bin being configured to hold one or more medically related items, wherein at least one medication storage bin includes one or more dividers providing two or more sub-compartments within the at least one medication storage bin; a medication dispensing area having one or more doors in the enclosure for passing a selected medication storage bin through the enclosure, wherein the one or more doors are configured to open to define an opening of variable size, wherein the one or more doors are configured to open to define the opening based on a size of the selected medication storage bin, wherein the one or more doors are configured to open to match the size of the selected medication storage bin, and wherein the medication dispensing area is configured to successively present sub-compartments of the at least one medication storage bin through the one or more doors such that each time a medically related item stored by the at least medication storage bin is requested, a sub-compartment containing a next available medically related item is presented; and a robot system for moving the selected medication storage bin between a corresponding storage location within the enclosure and the medication dispensing area.