METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MONITORING, DOCUMENTING AND ASSISTING WITH THE MANUAL COMPOUNDING OF MEDICATIONS

摘要

The invention is a system designed to assist a hospital pharmacy in the compounding of medications comprising hazardous drugs. The system comprising: a safety cabinet, at least two robotic arm assemblies configured to simultaneously move vials and syringes within the safety cabinet, a plurality of cameras each installed at a specific location in the safety cabinet or on the robotic arm assemblies, and a processor. Each of the cameras is dedicated to provide real time digital images of the stage of the preparation process carried out at its location. Dedicated software and algorithms in the system processor allow almost all steps in the compounding process to be carried out automatically by the robotic arm assemblies without intervention by the operator or a supervisor and the cameras and imaging process algorithms are adapted to provide real-time feedback control of all stages of the compounding process.