Medication Station

Managing several prescriptions can be notoriously difficult. As we get older the general decrease in eye site and sharpness of memory can compound this to the point where it's beyond our ability to do it safely. It's at that point that a care provider should be called in, even if there is not another reason they would be necessary.

With the inevitable arrival of RFID chips in basically everything there is a potential solution that can help us stay independent longer. The basic idea is to have a small medication station with a clock, a large display, several slots to hold medicine bottles, an embedded RFID reader and an optional internet connection (wireless and/or wired).

Whenever a new prescription comes in, you would simply put the bottle in one of the storage slots in the station. Info about the number of pills in the bottle and the frequency with which they should be take would be automatically read into the station. Whenever it's time to take a dose the station would alert you with some type of alarm (flashing light, buzzer, radio coming on, whatever...). You would walk over to the station and it would illuminate the bottle you need with LEDs under its slot and tell you how many pills you need to take from it. Once you do, you would hit a button that lets the station know that you've taken them. If you have more pills to take from another prescription at the same time it would illuminate that bottle and give you the number of pills to take.

Once you have had everything you need, it would give you a note saying you are finished. (There could also be a nice soothing voice that tells you what to do in addition to the screen.) If you have the optional internet connection, the medication station can send a request for a new prescription when you are running low. If you are out of refills it can send a request for a new script to you doctor's office.

(_If someone patents this all I ask is that you give me a fair cut for the idea._)