An assembly for delivering medication to a patient has a cartridge loadable with a coiled strip of successively, physically linked medication-containing pouches. The cartridge is inserted into a delivery unit which has an advance mechanism which engages the strip and drives pouches successively out of the cartridge. Pouches are fed successively to an inspection mechanism and a separation station. At the inspection station indicia on successive pouches representing a medication schedule are inspected and compared and validated against a separately stored medication schedule recorded at the time the medication is packaged in the cartridge. A separation mechanism mounted at the separation station is used to separate a pouch at the leading end of the strip from the adjacent pouches. At a pouch exit, separated pouches are routed to a delivery zone.

In a pump cap for a pharmaceutical container, there is an electronic unit adapted to record activation of the pump cap by a user for the release of the contents of the container and release the reporting signals in a wireless manner, and to enable operational energy to come from outside, via an appliance in the form of a personal digital assistant, in a wireless manner, in order to record one or several pump cap activations by a user and the wireless release of the reporting signals from one or more pump cap activations.

Disclosed herein is a programmable medication dispenser. Further, the programmable medication dispenser may include a housing, a base wall, at least one actuator, at least one power source, a processing device, and a storage device. Further, the housing may include a body and at least one bottomless tray configured to be movably disposed within the at least one interior space. Further, the at least one bottomless tray may include a plurality of compartments. Further, the base wall disposed on one side of the at least one bottomless tray. Further, the at least one actuator may be coupled to the at least one bottomless tray. Further, the at least one power source configured to provide power to the at least one actuator. Further, the processing device may be communicatively coupled to the at least one actuator. Further, the storage device may be communicatively coupled to the processing device.

A medication dispensing assembly includes a container that has a plurality of reservoirs therein for containing pills and a liquid. A pill dispenser is coupled to the container and the pill dispenser is aligned with an associated one of the reservoirs to releases the pills from the container. A liquid dispenser is coupled to the container and the liquid dispenser is aligned with an associated one of the reservoirs to selectively release the liquid from the second reservoir. Alert unit is coupled to the container and the alert unit emits a reminder comprising an audible sounds. In this way the alert unit reminds a user to take the pills and the liquid at predetermined times.

A pill dispensing assembly comprises a pill bottle that is securely locked between a base and an attachable sleeve. The pill bottle and base form an enclosure in which pills are stored above a top portion of a dosing mechanism of the base. The top portion of the dosing mechanism comprises a ramp and a rotating arm that carries a pill from a base of the ramp to a position in which the pill will drop through an aperture in a bottom portion of the dosing mechanism into a channel that connects the aperture to a dispensing slot in a housing of the base. The base includes a microcontroller that interacts with a servomotor to control rotation of the arm and thereby the dispensing of a pill. The base also includes a wireless communication interface that enables the dispensing of the pill to be controlled by a remote entity.

A pill dispensing system comprises a pill dispensing assembly and an application executing on a device. The pill dispensing assembly includes an enclosure that stores one or more pills, a dosing mechanism, a wireless communication interface, and a microcontroller that is connected to the dosing mechanism and the wireless communication interface, the microcontroller being configured to activate the dosing mechanism to dispense a pill from the enclosure in response to the receipt of a control signal via the wireless communication interface. The application is configured to send the control signal to the microcontroller via the wireless communication interface in response to an interaction therewith by a user. Pill dispensing event data may be collected by the application and stored in a remote backend database and uploaded at a user's discretion to a physician and/or pharmacists electronic health record (EHR)/EMR system.

Medication management and reporting technology, in which output from at least one sensor configured to sense physical activity in a building in which medication of a patient is located is monitored and a determination is made to capture one or more images of the medication based on the monitoring. A camera is used to capture an image of the medication and the captured image is analyzed to detect a state of the medication. Information regarding a schedule by which the medication should be taken by the patient is accessed and an expected state of the medication is determined. The detected state is compared with the expected state and a determination is made that the patient has departed from the schedule based on the comparison revealing that the detected state does not match the expected state. A message indicating the departure from the schedule is sent based on the determination.

An activity monitor is associated with a container, such as a medication bottle, and includes one or more detectors configured to detect activity associated with the bottle, such as movement, opening and/or closing, and changes in volume and/or mass. The activity monitor may include alerting devices and be programmed with scheduling information. The activity monitor may also, or instead, be part of a system and communicate with one or more remote devices such as a user device or monitoring system, such as to receive programming information from those devices or to output activity information to those devices.

A method and apparatus for monitoring and/or managing adherence to a medication regimen that involves use of a sensor. Dispensing medicine from a container commonly involves pressure being applied to the container, which results in expansion of the container. In some embodiments, pressure is applied by a user through an aperture of the apparatus. In some embodiments, a processor monitors pressure sensor data from a pressure sensor that is physically coupled to the container and arranged such that activation of the pressure sensor indicates the container has expanded in response to the user applying pressure. A processor analyzes the pressure sensor data to determine whether medicine has been dispensed from the container. A computer system can compare the dispensed medication to a planned medication regimen to determine a state of compliance with the medication regimen.

Computerized oral prescription administration with refillable medication dispensing devices and associated systems and methods are provided. In one embodiment, a substance dispensing apparatus includes a housing sized and shaped for handheld use, the housing having at least one wall and a biometric sensor coupled to the at least one wall; a processor in communication with the biometric sensor, the processor configured to determine whether an intended user's unique biometric attribute is detected by the biometric sensor based on input received from the biometric sensor; and a pump in communication with the processor, the pump configured to dispense a substance from a reservoir to a mouth of the intended user in response to the processor determining that the intended user's unique biometric attribute is detected by the biometric sensor.