Background Information
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are over two million prisoners in the Federal and State Prison System. Eighty-nine percent of deaths in prison between 2001 and 2004 were attributed to medical conditions. The leading causes of death were heart disease (27%), various types of cancer (23%), liver diseases such as cirrhosis (10%), and AIDS-related deaths (7%). In addition to these physical ailments, it was found that 56% of state inmates, 45% of federal inmates, and 64% of local inmates suffered from some type of mental illness including mania, strong depressing, and psychotic disorders. The demand for medicatioins to be delivered to prisoners is high.
Currently, the way medication is dispensed in prison is a tedious task. A nurse has to individually place the correct medication for each prisoner into a 30 millimeter paper cup. The nurse must make sure that the medications do not touch and become contaminated. Prisoners line up at a pill window and receive their medications one at a time. Then the nurse has to make sure that the correct prisoner receives the intended medications in the correct dosages and actually takes the medicine, because some medications can be traded as commodities in prison.
Our automated system solves these problems by keeping the pills secure and separate inside the machine. Each prisoner can come to the machine, and receive the correct medication in a short amount of time. Pills are easily loaded into the system, greatly reducing the workload of the nurses.
Statistical Sources:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/mcdsp04.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/mhppji.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/hivp05.htm
