Patent US 4,839,806

A technique for providing automated direction and guidance to nurses to assist in the task of dispensing medication to patients. Information on all patients is stored in a stationary base computer. Information pertinent to the medication dispensing task is transferred from the base computer to a portable, hand-held computer adapted to be carried by the nurse during rounds. One portable computer contains information for only those patients assigned to one nurse. As the nurse approaches a patient, the portable computer is activated to display the name of each medication to be dispensed to that patient along with dose, route, and comments. The nurse enters into the portable computer whether the medication was dispensed or not. It can, thus, be determined whether any medication remains to be dispensed, and why it has not yet been administered. At the completion of rounds, data is transferred from the portable computer to the base computer to update the information stored in the base computer.