The Assistance for Drug Dispensing Using LED Notification and IR Sensor-based Monitoring Methods

In this study, an assistant system is developed for pharmacist to improve the dispensing quality by two functions: notification in time and monitoring in real time. During drug dispensation, the system gets the patient’s prescription issued from doctors, and drives the light-emitting diode (LED) for notification. Since some drug titles, shapes, colors, or packages are very similar, pharmacists waste lots of time to find the correct drugs. With LED notification, pharmacists pick up the drugs from the correct cabinets, and save the dispensing time. Second, the system monitors pharmacist actions by the infrared (IR) sensors. An alarm is given if pharmacists pick up the incorrect drugs or lost the drug items, even the correct LEDs are turn on. In addition, a web-based information system is designed for drug dispensing and inventory management. During the dispensation, patient information and drug data are displayed on the screen for notification.