| 摘要 |
A medication dispensing and timing system includes a central monitoring facility and a plurality of patient communicators, each containing sufficient memory for storing the medication schedule of a respective patient, and a clock circuit providing time and date information utilized in conjunction with the stored schedule to provide visual and aural prompts to the patient as medication is to be taken. Upon receiving a prompt the patient actuates a switch which causes transmitter means within the communicator to send a reply signal back to a computer at the monitoring facility, which includes a memory containing the same medication schedule and a clock circuit providing date and time information, whereby a follow-up procedure is initiated, including a follow-up message sent to the communicator, in the event a reply message is not received within a predetermined time following a scheduled medication event. The communicator may be equipped to electrically communicate with medication dispensing apparatus whereby the apparatus dispenses medication in response to a received prompting message. The dispensing apparatus may include a modem for communicating with the central monitoring computer to confirm actual dispensing when using, for example, a one-way paging system, and to provide a control path whereby the dispensing apparatus can be controlled from the monitoring computer in the event of a radio link failure.
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