Patent ID: 7182256

Claim:
In a system for tracking and monitoring medical products within a healthcare facility for medical products received by a pharmacy of the facility to administration to patients including inventory of medical products in medication dispensing units of the healthcare facility, and for verifying receipt of medical products in the dispensing units, monitoring removal thereof and tracking delivery of medical products from dispensing units to patients, and for verifying that patients receive correct medical products before administration, the system comprising: a pharmacy terminal for receiving product information and writing radio frequency identification (RFID) tag information for medical products received in the pharmacy, the product information including at least one of product name, dosage, patient ID, a management computer for receiving product information read from RFID tags of the medical products from the pharmacy terminal, and for comparing information of the medical products shipped to the healthcare facility with the information received from the pharmacy terminal to verify that the medical products were received by the pharmacy, a plurality of medication dispensing units for receiving medical products to be dispensed to patients, and each dispensing unit including a medication dispensing terminal, each dispensing unit including at least one storage drawer for storing medical products therein, each dispensing terminal being capable of reading RFID tags of medical products inside the dispensing unit before the dispensing unit receives medical products from the pharmacy and reading RFID tags inside the dispensing unit after medical products are placed therein for determining RFID tag readings before and after the medical products are disposed in the dispensing unit, each dispensing terminal being capable of communicating with the management computer for detecting a mismatch between the medical products received by the dispensing unit and medical products withdrawn from the pharmacy, and a patient room terminal for communicating with the management computer and including an RF reader for verifying the patient to receive medical products and comparing medical product information read from RFID tags with information of medical products to be administered to the patient, and for detecting a mismatch.