Patent ID: 8403224

Claim:
A method for tracking drugs during a transfer and administering process, wherein a drug is transferred from a storage container to a drug delivery container, the storage container having thereon a set of one or more storage-container-associated machine-readable indicia identifying the drug, the method comprising: a) accessing storage containers containing different respective drugs at a point of care of a patient to prepare one or more drug delivery containers, the respective drug delivery containers requiring a set of one or more drug delivery container associated indicia, yet to be prepared, corresponding, respectively, to the storage-container-associated machine-readable indicia identifying the respective drugs; b) preparing a drug delivery container to contain a drug next designated for transfer to a drug delivery container by: (i) providing a reader/indicia-generating device including a storage container reader and an indicia-generating device at the point of care of the patient, wherein the storage container reader is configured to read the set of one or more storage-container-associated machine-readable indicia, and wherein the indicia-generating device is configured to generate a set of one or more drug-delivery-container-associated indicia identifying said drug, based on the set of one or more storage-container-associated machine-readable indicia; (ii) causing the storage-container-associated machine-readable indicia to be read by the storage container reader at the point of care of the patient so that the storage container reader/indicia-generating device prepares a set of drug-delivery-container-associated indicia corresponding to said drug at the point of care of the patient; (iii) designating a next drug delivery container to which the set of drug-delivery-container-associated indicia corresponding to said drug are to be applied and to which said drug is to be transferred; (iv) transferring said drug into the designated next drug delivery container from the storage container at the point of care of the patient; and (v) applying the set of one or more drug-delivery-container-associated indicia to the designated next drug delivery container at the point of care of the patient; wherein the point of care of the patient is a medical care delivery location configured for immediate administration of drugs to the patient in response to a need of the patient, and wherein, at the time of preparing the designated next drug delivery container to contain said drug transferred from the storage container, only the set of one of more drug-delivery-container-associated indicia identifying said drug, prepared in step b)(ii), is at hand for application to the designated next drug delivery container to which said drug is transferred.