CA2921348A1 - Novel medication dispenser - Google Patents

Abstract

Medication dispenser comprising: an array of compartments, each one of said compartments adapted to receive at least one pouch containing medication; and means for identifying each compartment;
wherein each one of said compartments having a length, a width and a depth and comprising a bottom, a first and a second pair of opposite sides connected to said bottom, said first pair of opposite sides being connected to the adjacent sides of the second pair and the sides defining said length having an indentation to adapted for finger insertion to allow for grasping of said pouch by a user.

Description

Description The basic structure of easy dose weekly supply consists of:
1- 28 compartments in a 4*7 pattern

2- A top (or bottom) labelling bar

3- A side (right or left) labelling bar

4- An enclosement 1- The purpose of the 28 compartments is to hold the medication pouches in place till used by the patient. The compartments are arranged in 4*7 pattern (4 doses a day and 7 days a week). Compartment dimensions: L 4.5 cm / W.: 1,5 cm /Depth: 4.5 cm (Empirical = 1.77 * 0.59 * 1.69 inches) 2- The top bar is divided into 5 sections: Week # - Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner - Bedtime 3- The side bar is divided into 7 sections: Sun - Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu - Fri -Sat.
4- The enclosetnent is a container that contains the medication pouch organizers. The enclosment could hold one week or more (up to 4 weeks) supply of the medication.
Modifications to Easy Dose:
1- The top bar may be extended to include more variations for example before/after Breakfast 2- The Side bar may be extended to include more than 1 week for example 10/14 days of medication supply.
3- An alarm using light and/or sound could be added to remind the patients of their dose.
4- The choice of material is ideally plastic, but could be made of wood, carton, tin or any other material.

5- The compartment size may vary according to the pouch size

Claims (6)

Claims Current approaches to improve compliance:
Current weekly organizers have the same layout in terms of days of the week and number of doses per day. They are known as blister packs and commonly called bubble packs, However:
1- They are filled in by hand. The tablets are placed in the palm of the hand and filled one by one into the designated slots increasing the chances of contamination.
2- The blister pack is available as one piece. (one week supply) 3- High chances of error as the pills could be misplaced during the filling process.
4- If the patient s medication regimen is altered, the entire blister pack has to be deblistered and refilled right from the beginning.
5- During the process of filling the pills may be scattered or dropped on the floor thus increasing the waste to the pharmacy and polluting the environment.
6- It is labour consuming as a technician or a pharmacist has to fill the medications one by one into each slot.
7- Interruptions during the filling process increases the chance of errors placing and labelling the medications.
Using the Easy dose will help tackling these problems:

1- The pills are filled automatically in pouches eliminating the unsanitary conditions associated with hand filling.

2- The pills are totally separated allowing the patient to carry them as single doses if they are going on an outing.

3- The process of pouch filling is automated thus significantly reducing the chances of misplacement.

4- Any changes in patients medication regimen could be accommodated easily.

5- The automation of pouch filling would eliminate dropping or scattering of pills.

6- The entire process is much less labour consuming and significantly improves the workflow while reducing the chances of errors.