Community based managed health kiosk and prescription dispensement system

Abstract

The present invention is directed to systems and methods that provide community based managed health kiosks and prescription drug dispensing systems, and more particularly to facilitating automated drug dispensement by a kiosk system following authorization by a remotely located health care professional who can monitor and communicate with a patient via the kiosk system.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,657, filed Mar. 19, 2009, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 070,309, titled “HEALTH INFORMATION AND SCREENING SYSTEM”, filed Mar. 21, 2008.[0002]This application is related by subject matter to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,623, filed Mar. 19, 2009, titled “COMMUNITY BASED MANAGED HEALTH KIOSK AND REMOTE DIAGNOSIS SYSTEM”; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,637, filed Mar. 19, 2009 titled “COMMUNITY BASED MANAGED HEALTH KIOSK SYSTEM”; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,648, filed Mar. 19, 2009 titled “SECURITY SYSTEM FOR A COMMUNITY BASED MANAGED HEALTH KIOSK SYSTEM”; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,652, filed Mar. 19, 2009 titled “COMMUNITY BASED MANAGED HEALTH KIOSK AND RESEARCH DATABASE SYSTEM”; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12 / 407,677, filed Mar. 19, 2009 titled “COMMUNITY BASED MANAGED HEALT...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is about creating health kiosks and prescription drug dispensing systems in communities. Specifically, it focuses on allowing a kiosk system to automatically dispense drugs after a remote healthcare professional has authorized the patient using the kiosk system.

Problems solved by technology

The challenge for further improvements in health care screening is to educate consumers about the need for medical tests, and demonstrate that many tests are effectively performed by publicly available devices or at home.

A present concern is that health screening is performed on an insufficient segment of the population to efficiently prevent or treat ailments.

Other concerns are that health screening is too costly, limited in scope, and time-consuming both for individual patients and health care providers.

Generally, individual doctors and small groups of doctors have insufficient capital to maintain complete health screening facilities.

Even if more health care providers were suitably equipped, typically only a small portion of the population utilizes health screening facilities due to time constraints, cost considerations, and / or general apathy.

Health care costs are a major concern in this day and age in the United States.

Some commentators point out that our current national health care policy does little to incentivize preventative medicine and instead incentivizes treating major problems, at a high cost, somewhere down the line.

Such systems, however, do not take advantage of more modern technologies.

More and more medical testing devices have become cheaper and easier to manufacture, making their absence from such screening facilities inefficient.

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