Automatic blood-sampling tube preparation system

Inventors

Matsumoto, Toshikazu • Hirasawa, Yoshimi • Nakano, Yasushi • Wada, Yusuke • Nakamura, Ichiro

Assignees

Techno Medica Co Ltd

Abstract

The present invention provides an automatic blood-sampling tube preparation system which can reduce the reading mistake of the information of the RFID tags by selectively taking out a blood-sampling tube required to an examination of a patient according to a doctor's instruction information from the blood-sampling tube containing section, writing the patient examination information on a RFID tag of the taken out tube on the basis of the instruction information, reading simultaneously all patient examination information from all RFID tags contained in the prepared container for every patient, and comparing the information read from the RFID tags with the instruction information to ensure accuracy.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to an automatic blood-sampling tube preparation system that includes at least two blood-sampling tube containing sections, each section being intended to contain blood-sampling tubes of a same type. A tube transferring device selectively removes a blood-sampling tube required for use in the examination of a blood sample of a patient by a doctor from one of the blood-sampling tube containing sections and transfers the removed blood-sampling tube. The transferred blood-sampling tube is received by a writing device, which writes patient examination information onto an RFID tag disposed on the blood-sampling tubes.

A discharge conveyor receives the blood-sampling tubes from the writing device and discharges the blood-sampling tubes to a container positioned on a blood-sampling tube recovery device traveling along a transferring path. The blood-sampling tube recovery device includes the container configured to receive the blood-sampling tubes per each patient and travel along the transferring path. A reading device arranged along the transferring path reads simultaneously all patient examination information from all RFID tags of the blood-sampling tubes contained in the container while the container is transferred by the blood-sampling tube recovery device.

A control device receives instruction information by a doctor, in which the patient examination information for each patient is included. The control device compares the patient examination information read from the RFID tags with the instruction information to determine whether the patient examination information matches the instruction information. If the patient examination information read from the RFID tags does not match the instruction information, the control device controls the operation of the blood-sampling tube recovery device to make the container move so as to change or alter the state/orientation of the tubes and therefore the RFID tags attached to those tubes contained in the container, and then controls the reading device to read the patient examination information from the RFID tags again and compares the patient examination information and the instruction information.

Claims Coverage

Independent claim clm-00001 covers an automatic blood-sampling tube preparation and recovery system with four inventive features: selective tube transfer and RFID tag writing, simultaneous RFID reading with comparison to doctor instruction, retry control by changing tube/tag state or orientation, and container movement using lifting device and/or conveyor.

Across the independent claim, the inventive coverage is directed to selectively preparing patient-specific blood-sampling tubes with RFID-tag patient examination information, simultaneously reading all RFID information from tubes in a per-patient container while that container moves, comparing the read information with doctor instruction information, and performing a retry control that changes tube/tag state or orientation via container movement using lifting device and/or conveyor followed by re-reading and re-comparing.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications