Medicine storage apparatuses, which allow retrieving medicines such as ampouled injection medicines in a single action, returning medicines without disturbing the arrangement, and keeping track of storage status properly, are being developed. The medicine storage apparatus is provided with a large number of cassettes each aligning and storing medicines, and a support means for arranging and holding the cassettes. A port is formed in each cassette to allow medicine to be pushed inside as well as retrieved from the cassette. The cassette is also provided with an urging means for urging the stored medicine toward the port. The support means is provided with a rack which holds the cassettes arranged in multiple tiers or multiple rows, while exposing the port, and with a counting means for determining the number of medicines stored in each cassette. For accurate medicine management providing a real-time output, the medicine storage apparatus is also provided with: an output means such as a printer, a storage medium and a communication device which outputs medicine management data in response to storage and retrieval of medicines in and out of the cassettes; and an information processing means which performs processes such as tallying, monitoring, reviewing and stock control, in accordance with the output data.
Before the medicine storage apparatuses of this type were developed and offered for use, people at a site of medical care such as an operating room tried to make a medical treatment easier by making available medicines such as injection medicines prior to a treatment such as an operation, i.e., by arranging and partitioning the medicines so as to be ready for use. To prevent medicines from running short during the treatment, extra supply of medicines were prepared. When the treatment is over, surplus medicines were returned to a dispensary and the medicines used in the treatment were counted. The task was primary undertaken by medical assistants or primary medical workers such as nurses. They had to rummage through a container such as a bucket for disposed articles. In many cases, they were also assigned the task of entering the number of medicines used in a form for management of medicines or in a computer system for stock control of medicines. Thus, those who completed a stressful task of attending a medical practice at a site of medical care such as an operating room had to continue to be responsible for extra management operations even after the main job is done. Consequently, they had hard time freeing themselves of strain and suffered heavy physical and mental burden. The task was made even more difficult and strenuous if, for example, an ampule of injection medicine is broken or a syringe was mixed in the disposed articles.
In addition to reduction in the burden of primary medical workers, provision of the aforementioned medicine storage apparatus for practical use offers the following additional advantages.
That is, the apparatus has made possible fair and impartial information management and information systems. Another advantage is that reproducibility is ensured easily. Computer-based management saves manpower expenses and labor cost, improves the quality of management and enhances reliability. Tallying the amount of use enables maintaining proper stock and reducing dead stock, thereby contributing to hospital management. As the flexibility in layout in the interior space is high, medicines are easy to handle, and work efficiency is improved. Since the apparatus also enables automated inputting and tallying of management data, input errors are reduced and the manpower expenses needed for operation are also reduced. The apparatus is of a simple configuration adapted for a mode of operation involving just as many people as are needed at a site of medical care. As such, the maintenance cost is low. The usage of the apparatus is easy to learn, not requiring in-depth system knowledge or understanding, or high-level proficiency. As a result, there would be only few operation mistakes.
When an action of retrieving a medicine is performed, it is determined that the medicine is set. When an action of returning a medicine is performed, it is determined that the setting action is revoked and made to remain uncompleted. In this process, not only the retrieval action but also the return action doe snot require entry of data, preventing input errors and human failures. The whole operation of retrieval, return, inspection, and replenishment can be done promptly. Since the sequence of taking out medicines and the combination of the medicines taken out can be checked in real time, the apparatus contributes also to mishaps-in-medical-practice prevention, prevention of mistakes, risk management, and prevention of near accidents. Since medicines are partitioned and stored into the cassettes, check and review can be performed easily when inspecting a refill at the time of replenishment and inspecting a returned article. Since the medicines are tallied in real time without time lag, a series of actions in setting a medicine can be reviewed without a data entry. Check of the expiration date of medicines, preparation of medication history lists of patients, etc. can be performed automatically.
[Patent Document No. 1]    JP 2001-198194
[Patent Document No. 2]    JP 2002-259778
[Patent Document No. 3]    JP 2002-11072
As such an excellent medicine storage apparatus becomes widely accepted, expectation arose that an apparatus having the same advantage could be used for accurate storage and management of medical resources other than medicines. This has led to a demand for medical resource storage and management apparatuses which are capable of easily and properly storing and retrieving medical resources and automatically keeping track of storage status.
It should then be noted that medical resources include consumable items and sterilized resources. An extensive variety would be encompassed even excluding drugs, medical implements and medical equipment. It is therefore improper to use the conventional scheme of aligning and storing them in cassettes.
Illustrative examples of such resources include catheters, tubes, plates to reconstruct osseous defect, artificial joints, pacemakers, which are all expensive. They come in a variety of forms. For example, they are boxed, packed, provided as a single article or packaged into a kit. The amount of medical resources used is also diversified. For example, the same resource may be used in a large amount or a large variety of resources may be used each in a small amount. Further, medicines are variously handled in a Class 1000 operating room, a central treatment room, an emergency treatment room or in a less-equipped medical ward. Another fact of note is that medical resources are expected to be sanitary and safe to use. Particularly, sterilized resources are cleansed in a pre-operation room, using various methods of sterilization such as EO gas sterilization, ultraviolet irradiation sterilization, sterilization by boiling and wet sterilization. It is also to be noted that the effect of sterilization derived from any sterilization method expires after a certain period of time, which differs from one method to another.
Accordingly, an important task would be to arrange and store an extensive variety of medical resources without accommodating them in cassettes, while still allowing easy retrieval. An additional task would be to employ measures to prevent disarrangement of the medical resources stored and resultant disorganization, in order to ensure that, even in cassetteless storage, availability of each medical resource can be properly detected for automatic management and that, for smooth retrieval, a user is properly guided to a location of storage of a medical resource to be taken out. A technical task to implement such measures would be to simplify the structure of the apparatus in view of the characteristics of medical resources and to work out a way to store as much variety as possible of medical resources in the simple apparatus.